Best Laid Plans

Originally, my plan for today's post was to talk about some of the ideas presented by Toby Hemenway at his presentation "Agriculture, Horticulture, Permaculture" at the Mother Earth News Fair this weekend. However, while I was typing away here at my desk, I noticed a white rabbit standing outside my window.

No, really. A white rabbit.

I got up to take a closer look, and then saw a few more rabbits... MY RABBITS... out in the yard.

Oh, Crap.

So... I threw on my boots and ran outside for 2 hours of rabbit wrangling fun. First, I had to locate the escape tunnel, to make sure no one else could get out. Took me a while to find it, but hidden in the bushes about 6 feet away from the enclosure was their little Hogan's Heroes-style escape hatch. Very interesting, indeed.

The rest is a bit of a blur, but it mostly looked like this...

... with me close behind, swearing and muttering under my breath. 

Makes you want to raise rabbits, doesn't it? Pro-cage folks, I get it. I really do. Once the litter of kits that's underground comes up, we're going to move everyone into a temporary enclosure for a day or two while we re-do the colony floor. It'll either be poured concrete or a whole lot of wire fencing buried underneath. Maybe both, the way I'm feeling right now. 

I've actually been trying to sell some of our rabbits off, for a few weeks now. I guess rabbits aren't moving these days- although I was happy to sell Smudge a couple of weeks ago to a nice young guy who was looking to start raising his own meat rabbits. He's a nice buck, and should do well in the offspring department. 

Instead of a little extra cash in my pocket, however, I'll be processing three, maybe four rabbits today. Once they've all calmed down from their excitement, that is. I rounded everyone up and put my escapees into a portable pen (with a wire floor) that they can relax in for a while. It's definitely not the way I'd hoped to spend my day, but the weather is on the cooler side this morning, which is good for processing. Plus, we've clearly hit a critical point with these gals- if they're digging out, they're overcrowded, regardless of how well they all get along. 

So, it's time. I'm off to gather my supplies and set up my processing station. I won't be taking any photos while I work -too messy- but I will post some links to information I've found helpful for folks who are looking for more info.

Have you had a morning like this, where things start out one way and then everything goes a little sideways? In hindsight, the stories that end well can be pretty funny, so please share- either here or over on our Facebook page! 

Grit Post

Happy GRIT day, everyone!

I'm running a little behind schedule today, but the new post has been uploaded to their server and should be live a little bit later. I'm talking about my mild Pacific Northwest garden and what I do to boost the temperatures around my heat-loving plants.

Hope to see you there!

MENF and Other News

Hey, everyone! I hope you had a great weekend. I surely did!! This is what it looked like:

2014 Mother Earth News Fair. Puyallup, WA.

The Mother Earth News Fair (MENF) was AMAZING. I have many (many!) pages of notes from the presentations I attended, that I'll be basing upcoming posts on. All of the speakers I listened to were great, but I have to say that the two standouts were Toby Hemenway and Joel Salatin. Between the two of them, my head is still spinning with ideas!

There were so many great vendors and exhibitors, too! The poultry show hall was packed full of hundreds of beautiful birds, from chickens and roosters to ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea hens with their gorgeous feathers and not-so-pretty faces. There was even a show pigeon area, but I didn't have time to wander through there, unfortunately.

I sent a few tweets and instapics while I was there, but mostly I was rushing between presentations and trying to cover as much ground as possible. Next year, I'm definitely going to get a hotel room down there so I can attend both days. There's just too much good stuff to be seen, and I'd like to do it at a more leisurely pace. The day positively flew past and I had a wonderful time. There are 2 more fairs this year, in September (PA) and October (KS). I *highly* recommend checking them out, if you're in the area.

On to more news: I've been working hard at monetizing the blog; in order for this to be my new career, I have to find a way to bring in some money to support the work that I do. I didn't want to overload people with random ads, so with the exception of the ad feed from Google, I've been hand-picking affiliate programs to join. Affiliate programs (like the Amazon link, for example) pay small commissions on sales that generate from a given website. I list books and things that are of interest to me, but it's not limited to those items- all you have to do is start out here at the blog, then click on an affiliate link to shop at your merchant of choice. Then, they give me credit for the traffic when you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. So please, check out the affiliates when you're looking to make purchases, and help me keep this going.

One of the affiliate partners that I'm excited to team up with is Craftsy. As a thank you for joining their affiliate program, I get to take one of their classes for free so I can do a post about it. I purchased a few classes over the winter, and I've been singing their praises ever since- so if you haven't checked them out yet, please do! This week, over on the FB page, I'll put up my three top choices and let you guys decide which class I take and then I'll do a post (or series of posts, more likely!) to share my experiences with you.

I also have a couple of giveaways coming up! I know I've mentioned them before, but I'm a huge fan of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed company. I reached out to them last week about partnership opportunities, and they've graciously agreed to provide a copy of their hardcover book "The Heirloom Life Gardener: The Baker Creek Way of Growing Your Own Food Easily and Naturally", written by the owners, to be used as a giveaway prize! I'll review the book before the giveaway, so keep an eye out for that in the next couple of weeks. The other giveaway will happen this week on FB as well- it's a package of reusable produce bags that I got at the Fair yesterday... stay tuned!

What did your weekend look like?