Broccoli, Baby Rabbits, and Being Sick

January has come and gone and half of February has past by my in a blur. I've been sick. First I had pneumonia. Yay me ... and then I got conjunctivitis. The pneumonia was the remnants from a viral bug that did the rounds, so this all started even before my lungs flooded. And so, I've been miserable and not doing much.

But I managed to venture outside this week and found the farm just keeps on going whether I'm there or not. I found a nice harvest of broccoli in my greenhouse, savoy cabbage heads beginning to form, baby brussel sprouts filling the plants, and a couple of heads of lettuce tucked into leaves from the wisteria.

I love growing broccoli over the winter. It's sweeter and I don't have to contend with cabbage moths destroying my plants or picking the worms out of the heads like I do if grow them in the spring time. Plus it gives me a green harvest in the middle of winter which is very welcome indeed.

I also found baby bunnies. These guys hopping around happily.

There are four in that nest box snuggled together if you can't tell. Four is our average litter of kits. Sometimes we get six or seven at a time but four seems to be the best number for the moms to handle and in terms of good growth on the babies. Some people might remove some of the babies to have a better outcome overall with bigger litters, but I'm too squeamish to do that and feel like nature can handle that on her own. I just deal with what we get.

Writing, Goats, and Lots of Time

I bet anyone who might still be following this blog will be shocked to find a new post on it. I've been thinking a lot about the farm lately and resuming my blog about it. The last two years has been a roller coaster of activity in my life. Writing has taken center stage. Fiction writing, that is. Writing about writing. Promoting writing. Sharing writing. Being a writer.

I had no idea what I was getting myself in when I started down this path.

My farm life has turned into my mecca even more than it originally was. It's my retreat. It's the part of me I don't share too much any more. And that's a shame, really, because I do enjoy it so much.

Since my last post a lot has happened on our little farm. The two boar goats we started out with have been replaced by their son and a female Alpine plus their two babies.

This cutey is Adelaide, a boer/alpine cross. This is one of my favorite photos of her when she newborn ... about 6 hours old or so. A friend was concerned that she was laying down but goats often lay down especially as they get older. This one didn't stay on the ground too long. She is the bounciest jumping baby ever and routinely greets us by jumping up on top of the stall partition wall. 

This is a pic of mama Raphaela and both babies when they were around a month old. Remington is on the left and Adelaide on the right. Remington is actually a calm sweet male much like his daddy, while Adelaide is the wild one like her mama.

Speaking of her mama ... I milk her. Even when the babies were nursing, she gave me about three gallons of milk a week, which is way more than we'll ever drink. I've been making cheese with it, like this:

We are quite pleased with the flavor and abundance of it. I just wish I had the facilities to age it properly but I have managed to make some decent cheddar with it as well as chevre and mozzarella. Just one more notch in my homesteading stick.

So I guess since I'm reviving this blog for my farming things, I'll have to try and keep up with it. Winter is upon us though so there isn't a whole lot to write on for now, but seeds will have to be planted soon and the goat keeps on giving milk and new chicks will arrive so we shall see what the future holds.

Keep on learning!!