Welcome rain, warm nights.

Despite the challenges right now we're moving along with life as we address them. Lately our predator concern has come from the hawks that are out a lot lately. The electronet doesn't help with that, but the chickens have been sticking to the tall grass and weeds to hide from the aerial threats. I'm always glad to see animals doing the smart thing to stay alive when I can't be there to preserve them 24/7/365 since I'm at work during the day.

On the funding side of things, the furnace situation is rough, but the go fund me has been incredibly helpful, and people have been generous, kind, and helpful with money, advice, and love. Our strength and wealth is in our community and friends, and this has really highlighted that.

Perfect weather for greens.

The grass is getting out of control with the nearly every other or every third day rain we've been having followed by hot sunny days. I'm going to actually have to mow the law instead of using a sickle and feeding it to the rabbits. Just too much greenery! Not a thing I thought I'd be saying, but there it is. We've been trying to keep on top of the weeding. In the bare beds I haven't mulched yet that's tough, though the garlic is going gang busters as you can see.

Mass weeding.

One of the fun things about a sudden change from normal cool spring to super hot is the explosion of life. That also means an explosion of weeds. In this photo you can see a profusion of god knows what in with our garlic. The quantity of weeding that we had to do was a little intimidating, fortunately it wasn't just the Lady of the House and I working on it. It also led to us doing some calculations and making some new decisions about our gardens.

Weeds and Boris.

The good news is Boris is doing very well, he's about fully healed at this point and only occasionally stumbles. The bad news is, he's the only chicken we have left. Between sickness, fatigue, etc, etc, we didn't get the electric fence up yet, and what was probably a fox again came and took all of our laying hens leaving Boris uninjured, but panicked. The Lady of the House found him panting and hiding in the shadow of the house, he's not well enough to fight a fox again, though the fact that the fox left him indicates that most likely it's the same fox that didn't want to tangle again, and left him alone. I feel really crappy about myself because I let the fact that I've been very tired lately get in the way of setting up the electronetting, and lost 4 hens because of it. The first one, happens. The other four are entirely because I didn't do my job. We're fortunate to be in a situation where we will be able to get more laying hens that are being de-acquisitioned from a friend's flock. Before we do so though, I'm getting that fence installed and running because I don't want to do this again. On the up side though, the world is turning green.

Many good photos around the house.

The Lady of the House has graced us with photos from her higher quality camera, and it makes a hug difference. I love seeing the really good photos, especially since she's been getting better day by day at framing shots which really reduces the preparation work of photos. You can tell because I have a huge mishmash of photos today. As you can see Above Dorado still is our floppy bunny of please pet me. Every day when I bring food he of all of the rabbits wants me to open the hutch and pet him. I've been trying to make an effort to do so since I know it makes him happy. It's tougher than it used to be, I'm getting up at the same time and doing the same chores, but I'm so much more fatigued than I was pre Critter small things seem harder.

A productive, and fun July 4th weekend.

July 4th was a very busy weekend for us around the homestead, and full of good people and good company to go with the significant amount of work there was to do. For the 4th, we had a brush clearing party, then a camp fire. When it started raining just before folks showed up I didn't expect to get much done, or have a fire. As you can see the fire happened, and below the cut you'll get to see just how much we got done in the thankfully warm rain.

Summer recharge, fast growing chicks, and weed combat.

For all that we sometimes wonder why we are where we are, and think about wanting to leave during the winter, May through October reminds us why we live here beyond just the ideas of why we're doing what we're doing. Some days are just beautiful, and while I'm not a good enough photographer to really capture the appearance of what I wanted to share on the cell phone camera, but it was beautiful. Coming home to this kind of gorgeous lighting in perfect weather is just the kind of thing we need to recharge from stress and fatigue. As you can see, everything is green and bright, and the weeds need more attention which isn't shocking given our time frame this year. I really want to try to make sure I get out and do something about the goldenrod before it flowers this year to try to cut down on how much more grows next year. The other weed that we're having to actively kill this year that I never thought I'd be considering a weed is raspberry and blackberry! On the up side, the rabbits are having some great meals when I just hack down an arm load of raspberry plants and pass them out. So far that's still their favorite treat food which is very entertaining to watch. Even Twilight's nervous babies come out to eat it even when I'm around to interact with them because of how high value of a treat the greens are. I want to feed Goldenrod again because it's everywhere, but I just need to make absolutely sure that it's all goldenrod this time and I don't slip dogsbane or anything like it in with the safe food again.

A frost after the furnace, weeds, and a final push on the barn Sunday.

After a few days of near 90 temperatures, this morning we had frost on the ground, and the chicken water had some thin floating ice. I can't say I actually object to the lower temperature even though I didn't object to the higher temperature. The kits are much more active in the cooler temperatures, and while we have having a cool break before the heat of the summer drops in hard again we should get the next round of breedings done. Again though, before I can do that I have to get Dawn and her daughter into the larger hutch, which means finishing it. Which reminds me I HAVE to get the wasp nests out of that hutch before I go in and work on it. Things to do tonight. Too much going on! I am not even going to be able to get too much going on this weekend other than the seedling swap and finishing off the barn. I need more time at home, especially with some things that are coming up.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank another new contributor on Patreon, the generosity is greatly appreciated from all who are contributing at any level.

A merry chase

I figured today was a good day for baby bunny photos, unfortunately I forgot that when trying to get photos on a rainy day you A: need to be out of the woods, and B: a corollary, you need a second pair of hands. The Lady of the House is out of town right now since she was selling at Otakon this past weekend. This promptly led to a game of find the blue gray 2 week old rabbit in the tall grass and raspberry bushes. Before doing the cut, I assure those of you who just came for the baby bunny photos, all turned out well, and no babies were harmed, and there will be more (well, one more) photo below the cut.