Farmer?

Hey, I am on a roll! 4 posts in four days!

When one buys a house with 8 acres of land and decides to attempt to grow a large portion of the food they need, possibly selling any surplus, you could call that person a farmer, right? Small scale farmer, for sure, but still a kind of farmer. I totally expected to get to the point where I call myself a farmer, after I had all the gardens and trees and all in and we were harvesting enough produce to need that farmstand at the end of the driveway.

Turns out I think I am getting a taste of a different kind of farmer, the animal raising kind. We now have in our care:
4 gerbils
2 cats
1 rabbit
and 6 chickens.

I went from caring for one cat who you rarely saw, to being the caretaker to thirteen creatures. Every day, we have to feed, water, clean up after, and give love and attention to them all. The girls have been great helpers, doing their share of the work, and pitching in to help me do the rest.

I am not complaining about the work. I am just starting to feel that my life has changed in a profound way. I am now a farmer. I am not yet getting anything much out of these animals, but I have to put in the time and effort anyway. Things like vacations will now require a big effort to make sure the animals are well cared for when we are out of town. The budget is impacted with the food and bedding needs of these animals.

Soon, we will get some fiber from Stella, and then the chickens will lay eggs for us. The cats already provide mouse population reduction duty, and the gerbils turn cardboard into compost carbon/brown inputs (and tiny amounts of poop!). There will be other animals in the future, too. A pig each year for the freezer sounds nice, C thinks a goat for milk would be good, and some chickens for meat could easily be added to the mix. And somewhere in there, we will be growing a significant percentage of our food. A few years from now, we might even make some money from all this farming!

Oh, I forgot to mention that all of the animals we have now are female, so with me and the girls, girls out rank boys in this household 16 to 1! Poor C. We told him we need to get a bull to balance things out! Maybe one of the chicks will grow up to be a rooster and he won't be so outnumbered. Of course, that rooster will have to go, so...

This One's For Tara...

...even though I know she already knows this:

http://organictobe.org/index.php/2009/04/09/manure-more-precious-than-gold/

See, I am not crazy to be applauding the glory of the poop!

Now, to go find me some shipping pallets to build the ultimate composter...

Stel-laaaaa!!!

Meet Stella:

She is a black French Angora rabbit, eight weeks old.

This is how happy we are that she is finally here:

Even the kitty is happy-she thinks she has been given a big snack to catch, if she can only figure out how to get in that cage. This is Stella's home:

Did I mention how happy someone is?

A is soooo excited to have her bunny. And I am so proud of her for all the research and prep she has done to get ready, and for how nonchalantly she handed over the cash to pay for both the bunny and all her set up. I wanted her to have full ownership of this venture, and if she gets it to the money making stage with the fiber and/or with breeding, she gets to own all the profits. Or she gets to learn about how hard it is to make a profit. Either way, it will be a great life learning experience. And in the meantime, we get to pet a soft sweet little bunny and enjoy her no matter what the profits!! Oh, and did I mention the poop? She makes quite a lot of it. It will make my garden very happy. Yay for poop!

Bunnies!

If this isn't the cutest thing you have ever seen, you must be blind!

Today we went to meet with a local lady who raises Angora rabbits. She had this litter of French Angoras available in a few weeks. A has been thinking about getting into the rabbits-for-fiber scene as her cottage industry, so when I saw the listing on Craigslist, I had to look into it. She was so excited when Charlotte emailed back and invited us to come meet the babies and to learn all about rabbit keeping. I knew as soon as I saw them, and Charlotte told me she was the only person who raises Angoras locally, that we would be getting one. Not that the girls would have let me say no! The only problem now is which color...

A is partial to this one, called a Smoke Pearl. The color will lighten up as she grows older.

E held this one, a Ruby Eyed White, but she voted for one of the black ones. Well, it will be A's deal, so she gets to choose, but we will see what we can do to get E on board with A's choice. A has already promised that she could hold the bunny and help her groom it.

Even I could not resist the adorable softness of an Angora bunny!

Charlotte was so nice and helpful. She showed us her spinning wheel and gave the girls a demonstration. A enjoyed trying her hand at the carding machine, although with one running about 200 bucks, she will have to make do with a couple of regular hand carders! She left very excited about Angora bunnies and confident in her ability to learn to spin. Charlotte even gave the girls a hunk of fiber to take home. It is soooo soft and silky. We also got a chance to say hello to her sheep and ducks. All around good day!