We get our fill of animals on this here micro farm, that's for sure!
Who can complain, when they're as cute as this?
Blossom1 and Blossom2 are really excited about these bunnies, because they are the fruits of breeding their own breeding stock for meat, at home, by themselves.
Now, that's cool.
These are the girlies' meat pens for the Fair at only a few weeks old.
It is awfully nice having snuggly baby bunnies around.
Blossom3 and Blossom4 love pesting their older sisters to let them hold a baby bunny. It's a current favorite pastime, even if the bunnies are much larger now.
We came home from a walk the other day to discover this doe hanging out in the front treeline.
Blossom2 noticed it. It seems she notices everything. Details are her "thang."
There was high glee as a result!
This regular little robin visitor came to be known as Stacy.
We kept seeing her around and could hear her parents chirping insistently to her from various vantage points around our yard.
"Can she fly?"
"Will she be okay?"
Check the top left corner of the above picture. Stacy is indeed able to fly, though her landings were a tad precarious, if you ask me.
One morning while choring, Blossom2 discovered this exquisite "butterfly."
Its wings were slightly damaged, but that meant we were able to get an excellent view of its gorgeous coloring.
God is a most creative artist.
The Blossoms informed me that they couldn't find it in the butterfly book.
Like a good homeschool mom, I let them look long and hard before I offered assistance. I then doggedly paged through the book myself and stubbornly refused to google it out of sheer pride.
Finally, I gave up and plopped down at the computer. Imagine my surprise and consternation upon realizing that this polyphemus moth was not in the butterfly book because it is not a butterfly. What a beautiful giant silk moth!
One morning the girls awoke to FIVE baby bunnies lippety-lopping around the yard. (Note the white blob to the right of the feed shed in the picture below - outside a cage!) Somehow, a whole passel of their Fair meat rabbits were loose. Of course, this happened on Sunday morning, before church. They were able to capture four before we left. They opened a cage door and put out feed and water for the remaining rabbit. They also set up box traps, but to no avail, this bunny remained on the loose until Monday morning.
With the heat index rising quickly, we were really starting to get concerned about heatstroke. While I spent my morning quiet time on the porch swing, that blasted bunny kept peeking his head out from under the feed shed.
I tiptoed through the dewy grass three times with a net, only to be foisted again and again by that "wascally wabbit."
Later that morning, I was starting to take his escape tactics personally. With a stubborn grunt, I postured myself on the ground, in the dirt with a handful of oats. The maddening coy little sucker just wouldn't be caught. I dug further and further underneath and the girls shooed him from the other side. I grabbed hold and did not let go.
Having freshly showered only an hour previously, I was now covered in dirt, rabbit fur and sweat,
but since I was now the hero of the day,
I didn't mind... too much.
I'd valiantly earned my Super 4-H Mom points for the month.
And now, I'm off to transport 34 animals to the Fairgrounds so we can enjoy a whole ten days of animals. It's Fair week, ya'll!
Dominique
