Moving rabbits and hutches.

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July. If you're in the USA I hope you enjoyed your Independence Day however you chose to celebrate it, and that your livestock, and the humans in your life weren't disturbed by the fireworks. For the most part we weathered the fireworks just fine, but last night it seems that Boris didn't make it back into the coop, and I wasn't able to find him this morning. Last night was a bad night to be out between the thunder storm, and the fireworks.

Otherwise this was a very good and productive weekend, though we also spent time getting to be sociable and relax which is important in the midst of stressful weeks.

Most of the hutches are gone, and almost all of the rabbits are gone with all but Dawn and her daughter, and Herbie being gone by the end of the day today. As you can see we have a lot of cleaning up to do after the hutch removal because there's a lot of manure under where they were. The good side is the manure is going to go right on the garden and hopefully help out our poor peppers and tomatoes which are suffering for the cold nights. The peppers and tomatoes are growing, but not much and we really need them to go faster, or just hope that we don't get our normal September frosts because otherwise we aren't getting much in the way of peppers and tomatoes! Either way, we're letting them do their thing, and hope the manure will help.
It is weird to me to not see the hutches in the woods, and it was a bit hard for me to pick up and move the rabbits and the hutches that have been such a part of our home and identity for the past five years. I'm really glad they've gone to good homes where they will be used and be treated well. I actually loved seeing the set up that most of the hutches went to where they're going to be in a garden with chickens right around in the same area. It's been a hard decision to get out of rabbits, and we know it's the right one. Doing the work of actually doing so was difficult. To be fair, it was partially difficult due to the weight of the hutches, but that's a different story.

To move the big hutch from the woods that had never been moved we removed the doors, and the sides to lighten it up, and that did help a lot. With six people we moved it over about 100 yards in around 5 minutes. Once we got it to the location it is going to be staying in that was a bit harder since we only had five people, and lost one of our strongest, but we managed to get the hutches into place.

I love seeing a bunch of people come together to get things like this done, and get it done well. The folks who are taking in the rabbits seem to be thrilled, and the rabbits will do well in their new home. Now, focus shift to the garden, and preparing the house.