Spring must be here!

I enjoy my little farm so very much, but I don't have a lot of success at it.  My fences always break down.  The animals people tell me will make me rich, like peacocks, really just drain money.  Even when I get rabbits, which are supposed to be prolific, they don't have babies for me.  At least, that's how it usually is.

So imagine my surprise when I went to feed the rabbits a couple of days ago, and found a baby bunny on the ground outside the cage...

To back up, I have had these rabbits for a while, and they have never produced.  I've kept the male and females apart, I've kept the males and females together.  No matter what I do, no babies.  What was all this nonsense about rabbits have many, many litters a year, anyway?

So I recently decided that I would try pasturing the rabbits, like my favorite farmer, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm does.  I rigged up what we had here on hand, and I put the two females and one male out on a big patch of lush grass near the house.

Like many of my other endevours, that ended in disaster when somehow, someway, the male got out of his cage, how I still don't know since it all seemed intact. My dog got him.  By the time I found what had happened, daddy rabbit was nothing more than a patch of fur.  I was quite disappointed.

So I put the females back into their large cage, and just figured they would be nothing more than fertilizer producers for me...

...until I found the baby bunny.  Daddy bunny must have decide to leave a legacy after all!

I climbed into the large cage, no small feat for a short old lady when the cage is so high off the ground, and peered into a very large box we keep in there.  Oh, my, there were a LOT of babies in there!  Eight in all.  And so far back, no wonder I didn't know!  These babies looked to be three or so weeks old.

My children are estatic!!

(Please excuse the mess behind them.  That area belongs to THEM - it's where they are allowed to drag any treasures they find and build clubhouses or whatever they feel like creating)

And I'm having fun, too.  I just love this!  I am not looking forward to the day when my kiddos all get so big I don't have anyone to be excited with me!

Now we are looking forward to Lacy, our Pyrenees, having her puppies, which will happen any day now.  Here she is, along with one of Angel-Leah's cats, getting a look at the bunnies, too.  She's not really licking her lips, is she?  Guess daddy bunny gave her a liking for rabbit?

This is why I don't let the kids open the door on their own.  Lacy is just waiting and ready for a chance to get in there!!

So...we have baby rabbits, puppies on the way any minute, and our chicks are growing well:

We also have a bunch of hens that still haven't realized it's spring and they are supposed to be laying...

They better get on the ball soon, because I have lots of space in my freezer!