*what's happening at Erilyn

So much has been happening here on the farm. My head is spinning, whew!

Our sweet Nubians are settling in nicely. Cleo has won the Miss Congeniality award and Nefertiti is making strides in trusting us.  Bodica on the other hand approaches most everything with great trepidation.  She stays by Nefertiti's side at all times. They are simply too cute.

Rabbits gestation period is rather short, amazingly short actually.  From the day they conceive they kindle some where between 30 and 31 days later. Our girls were both bred the same evening and they both delivered within hours of each other. We bred our New Zealand doe with our New Zealand buck as well as our Californian doe with our New Zealand buck - this time we had success!  Watchful of the calendar we added the nesting boxes so the girls could start to get prepared for what lies ahead.  This morning we found that Isis had pulled out her dewlap and made a nice nest for her 12 kits! YES, 12!  While only 9 of them survived the birth, I am happy about the large birth number since we are breeding for meat.  Our other doe, Athena was busy most of the day pulling out her dewlap and getting her nest ready.  Late this afternoon we found that she had also kindled!  She had 9 kits, all surviving and thriving at this point.  So you can guess in about 8 to 12 weeks what we will be doing.

 The sunflowers were a magnificent addition to the garden rows.  They have pretty much served their purpose and we began cutting the tops off so we can harvest the seeds.  The sunflower plants attract certain pest from the garden plants to them which I am in favor of. I would much rather have a stink bug sucking on the sunflower instead of sucking on the tender young okra. 

 Momma and I planted red skinned and white potatoes mid March. We just dug them this week. The production from the potatoes is quite impressive (to us).  In fact, we have been pretty please and much grateful for the abundant harvest from these grounds here in Florida.  We must have dug about 100lbs of potatoes over the last few days.

Busy little bees they are!  The bees were bearding the other night outside the entrance due to the extreme heat and humidity. It is very important to keep the internal temp in the hive cool as possible and when the hive is crowded it doesn't help with air flow or the temp. We will be opening the hive tomorrow to see if we need to add another supra as well as get a look at what is going on in their. I can't wait!  Literally.  I am scared and super excited all at the same time.  Tips I have learned: Do not walk in front of a bee hive, Wear light colored clothing when working with bees. They supposedly do not like dark colors. Move slowly in all your actions when near a hive. 

A few days ago momma came in and told me that we had a rooster in the bunch. I down right did not go for that. I said, "No we don't."  We bought chicks from Ideal Poultry and we ORDERED pullets. Turns out we have TWO roosters!  One of our Brahma's is a rooster, and our Giant Jersey White is a rooster.  You know the one we names Susan? She, I mean, he is a rooster. We have given him the name Husan now.  We did not care to own any roosters at this point in our game, but God obviously has a different plan. 

You will note that the Brahmas (on the left)  wattles are large and her his comb is large... this has been puzzling me for weeks now. But it is her his tail feathers that gave it all away!  He is a beautiful chicken and we are happy to have him in the bunch as well as Husan (the Jersey Giant White).