A busy time to get back in the saddle.

Today on Hillside Homestead, we've been very busy things that are a bit out of the ordinary. Specifically the Lady of the House is preparing for selling her art, and a new genetics centered collectible/game at Anime Boston. I also had a wisdom tooth extracted yesterday which is somewhat distracting as well. The up shot of that is, no new photos for today which I've been really trying to keep from happening since I've been trying to make sure to give the blog the attention it deserves consistently. I also wanted to take a moment to do a monthly mention of the Patreon and Amazon Wishlist links off to the right, and thank everyone for reading, and their support.

Below the cut I'm going to be talking about getting back to breeding rabbits, and thoughts about that.

Quick Hit: Twilight is angry with me, and chicken on walkabout

Apologies for the late post today, it's been sort of hectic between some dental work and everything else. This is going to be something of a short post because of that. I tried to get our first breeding of the season in, but Twilight decided she wasn't having any of that.

She actually ended up screaming when I picked her up, and unsurprisingly with that reaction wouldn't lift for a buck. We'll try getting her bred again next week so we aren't having kits born when we're gone for the weekend. I actually if I'd checked my calendar properly instead of half asleep would have seen this wasn't the day I'd intended to start breeding again by a week. Ahh well, apologies to Twilight as well! We'll regain her trust with some treats, and more regular handling than she got this winter. It's just been so cold, and I've been so tired I haven't been reaching in to say hi every day, I've just been trying to get chores done and off to work. By evening I just need to rest, and spend time with the Lady of the House, and that's led to some non trusting rabbits.

This morning had another adventure, when feeding the chickens I noted we were down one Rhode Island Red, and went looking for a body. Instead I found her roosted in a slightly precarious place, that's right by the basement door. Looks like she got herself stuck there, and wasn't too happy about it. Interestingly enough she just stepped up on my arm and let me carry her back to the run, where she hopped back up on the fence and back in with the rest of the chickens. Usually with birds I expect to have to train step up to get them to do it calmly, so it was a nice if unexpected thing.

So, Thursday I'll post our planned breeding schedule for what that's worth, and some of what's been going on with our rabbits behind the scenes.

Rabbit update

I realized I haven't given any updates on the rabbits lately. Mostly the rabbits are doing well, and the teens are still hanging around because I haven't had time to kill and butcher them. I'm fairly certain I'm not going to have time to take care of that any time soon no matter how much it needs to be done so I am going to be asking a friend to do it for me since I am constantly exhausted and busy.

Chickens, wood, and babies. Now with pictures.

As promised, today we have photos from around the homestead. We've finally been letting our chickens wander the property and do their thing, and they are quite different in behavior than the chickens we had around before. They don't have to be coaxed to come to garden beds with scratch, they're curious, and they are an unruly bunch that make quite a rapid impact on the grounds.

Overdue update

A new day, a new set of baby bunny faces. Well, really right now it's the same set of faces, but as they grow so fast it can feel like a whole new set of faces. Above are three of Twilight's current brood.  Much like their mother they are very engaged with anything involving food. That naturally includes us since we're involved with the appearance of food. I wanted a photo of Twilight hovering over them, but all of them were blurry dark gray mountains that didn't look so good sadly.  Overall, Twilight's kits are growing the crazy rate we expect, and we're happy to see that. Everyone is going to get re bred soon, so they'll only be with their mom for another few weeks for which she will be profoundly grateful, the're eating her food!