Shameless baby photos, and seed saving

 
 Yep, I'm taking advantage of the fact that we have cute babies right now to distract from the lack of serious content right now. I'll talk more about that below the cut.

Saturday was the last day off work I'm going to have until some time in January other than holidays which just don't count as relaxation. What does that mean for the blog? Well, probably shorter posts, but I'm going to try to avoid that. Since it is cold and I can't be doing work around the property I should in theory have time once I get home. In practice, we will just have to see. That doesn't mean I don't have things to write about, just that I'm going to have less time to do it than I might like.

 That said, Saturday was productive despite the lack of photos of what we actually did. I spent a couple hours digging out a bed that we are planning to use next spring for planting. I dug, turned the soil, and broke up all of the hard parts. I also threw copious numbers of rocks down the hill because that is just a normal part of digging in our hillside. I did the digging and preparation now for next year for a few reasons.

1: By turning the soil now the cold should kill most of the seeds of weeds, and various things we don't want growing there which will make it easier to take care of.
2: It Will kill the grubs that are over wintering there. Given that the bed I dug is where the tomato plants were, I'm hoping it reduces the numbers of tomato horn worms for next year.
3: I had free time and you need to use that to prepare when ever possible. It will reduce my spring bed prep for the first planting.

 The other big thing we did on Saturday was go to a local seed saving group event. The Hilltown Seed Saving Network is a new group to the area that is attempting to promote seed saving, and seed diversity rather than reliance on seed companies. There is a lot to say about seed saving as a whole and I should try to talk more about it on a political level, as well as a sustainability level. I should also try to prod the Lady of the House into writing about it on a scientific level.

The Claw of DOOM comes for an innocent baby.

Well, maybe not claw of doom, maybe it's warm and gentle instead.

We didn't find out about the event until after it had started from a poster at the local co-op grocery store. We quickly went home, and gathered up the seeds we had saved and headed down. We had missed part of the event but not all of it, and it was great to be there. We brought seeds from a few herbs, and the folks there had a huge variety of seeds, most of them vegetables, which is exactly what we were looking for. We took home a vast selection of seeds from the event. We have yet to inventory and catalog every seed type we picked up, but rest assured, we intend to. Things I know we brought home.

Butternut Squash
Anise
Winter Squash,
Rattlesnake Pole Beans
Kale
Green Beans
Dill
Arugula

There are many others I don't remember off the top of my head. Suffice to say that we have enough seeds to grow plenty next year if we put the work in. We certainly intend to put the work in, and we will be developing a garden plan, and schedule to try to keep ourselves to. We have both found that it is easier to get things done if you have a specific plan rather than when you're staring at a problem and deciding exactly how to handle it in the moment. We will be keeping you all updated on our plans and taking suggestions. Note, taking suggestions doesn't mean implementing them necessarily.
And as for bunnies, Twilight has never eaten in her life, as she tells us every day. Right you can see her eating with all of the gusto of . . . well, use your imagination. She is however healthy and happy. Once we butcher the remaining three baby rabbits for Thanksgiving we are going to try to put her and Umbra in the big hutch together for a while and see if we can get babies when he has time to romance her. We certainly hope so, though it seems Michelle Chandler is also having problems with her does clamping down at the moment. It's almost like they know something we don't know. Maybe something about the fact that it is very cold at the moment, and might be a hell of a nasty winter.

As for the babies they are doing well. They are incredibly fluffy, and very soft to hold. They have been throwing off the hay and down nest covering that they'd been living in every time we come to check on them, so I guess by now they can take care of their own warmth. Soon they will be out and about harassing their mom. We had a brief case of nest box eye in one of them, but a quick swipe with a damp paper towel took care of that this morning. For all I know it could have been that he was sleepy, but let's not take chances.

For those who are interested, weight charts are here.

Dawn Litter 3 Weight Chart
Dawn Litter 2 Weight Chart
Dawn Litter 1 Weight Chart