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Just because we're doing non-Covid things, doesn't mean we have forgotten the folks suffering from the virus.
We also really, really appreciate all those folks out there keeping things going and keeping everyone as healthy as possible. Good Job Hawaii in staying safe!
June 11th, 2020
Happy King Kamehameha Day
Hopefully new bunnies soon!
all the girls are hopefully busy!
Must be summer time since there's gardens and hopefully new baby bunnies. We will find out pretty soon if they're going to have litters or not, but some of them are looking pretty plump.
The "Apocalypse" garden
planted April 6th, 2020
The 'Apocolypse' garden is doing exceptionally well! Must be all the bunny 'berries'? Plus Baker Creek seeds, they've got excellent seed. This garden was planted in early April when the virus had everyone in lock down and kinda panicked about food supply lines. The supply lines have remained in place and the garden is doing well.
"True Gold" sweet corn
looking tasty already, it's hard to wait!
The 'True Gold' corn is making lots of ears, I guess the pollen managed to get to where it needed to go. Corn is wind pollinated and I wasn't sure if the wind would blow the pollen to the right places. The ears are starting to plump up, so apparently the wind did a good job. Now we just have to wait until they are ready, although, I'm not quite sure how to know when they are officially ripe.
The corn is supposed to be ripe the first week of July, if one goes by the growing instructions. I'm not sure if it will be early or not. I've not grown enough corn to know how long these sorts of things take. In the meantime, I hope the corn doesn't mind folks eyeing it with omnivorous intentions. Hmm, do you suppose gardens are extra afraid of vegetarians?
Watermelon climbing the fence?
Not sure how that's going to work!
I'd noticed that the watermelon vines had all sorts of graspy tendrils that were winding all over anything they could reach. Why would a watermelon want to climb up a fence? The fence is probably strong enough to hold up a watermelon, but is the vine strong enough? Should I make a little hammock for the melon if it grows?
If you look closely, you can see the one watermelon flower in the center of the picture is a 'female' flower. It has the small melon starting behind the flower. The other watermelon flower in the picture is a 'male' flower, it doesn't have the little melon below the flower. The vines have been making male flowers for the past week or so, I guess that's to get the bees used to visiting this area? I'm not gonna rely on the bees, though. I really like watermelons so all female flowers I find will be hand pollinated just in case the bees are taking a day off.
Pineapple growing by the bunny hutch
Pink celery soon, too!
The pineapple by the bunny hutch is getting bigger and quite pinepple like. The chickens leave it alone, at least, so far. They'd probably peck at it and eat some of it if it were ripe. The bunnies sometimes get some pineapple leaves to nosh on. They seem to enjoy those.
Not sure when the pineapple will be ripe, either. It's usually a summer to late summer sort of thing around here. Hawaii doesn't really have official seasons, but some crops seem to be more prevelant than at other times of the year. Right now we don't have any avocadoes on our tree, although some avo trees do have avos at this time. We do have a few lychee, those are almost a seasonal thing.
"Dancing Ladies" yellow oncinium orchid
orchids like bunny berries
This is an 'oncinium' orchid, I think? I don't really 'do' orchids, I just leave them laying about the yard and let them bloom when they feel like it. This particular one was a tiny thing when it started so I put the pot down in the grasses on the embankment in front of the bunny hutches. I figured it would stay moist there until I got around to finding a proper spot for it. The little yellow orchids proceeded to escape out of their pot and grow right there. Since the embankment doesn't get walked on or weed wacked, it's a pretty good orchid spot. There's also bunny berries directly uphill from it, so it has a constant supply of fertilizers.
Some years the yellow 'dancing ladies' orchid is almost the size of a small bush. There doesn't seem to be as many flower spikes on it at the moment, but it may bloom again or bloom more later. A flowering branch of orchids lasts for quite awhile.
New rat proof nesting hutch
gotta get it done soon!
This will be a new rat proof hutch with two nest sites. Considering how many possible upcoming litters are in the works, it needs to be done within the next several days. Actually, I should be out there working on it now instead of in here coding the webpage, but oh wellos!
This has a square frame to support the floor plates that match all the rest of the floor plates around here. The door plates are the same width as the floor plates. I wasn't sure how to finish this, but I'm gonna make a couple of matching side plates as well as a wall plate for the center between the two nest sites. The back will either be solid plywood or roofing tin since the back is almost at ground level and should some predator get into the bunny yard, I don't want them eye-to-eye with the bunnies.
There's six doe bunnies who will be interested in a nest site coming up soon. I'll list them at our "In the Nestbox" page so I don't have to write everything twice. And, I'll hopefully go do that before going out to finish the bunny hutch. Then, of course, there's the sheep fence and the "fixer-upper" renovation to work on as well as the Fixer-Upper Renovation page, but let's not put too much on the 'to do' list for today.
Hillside Lotus
with a grass mustache!
This is Lotus getting her nest ready two weeks ago.
Lotus and Caesar's litter
just hours old
This is the babies two weeks ago when they were just hours old.
Same litter same day
just hours older
Same litter just a few hours older. Baby bunnies change really quickly.
Now it's magically two weeks later and another picture!
Same litter two weeks later
Lotus started out with four of them. Pink, Pinker, Wrinkly and Black. I'd originally thought they were going to be two albinos, a lilac/chocolate/tortoiseshell(?) and a black, but they didn't get that memo! Pink and Pinker turned out to be a chocolate tortoiseshell (I think? Chocolate or lilac tort, anyway) and an either black or blue tortoiseshell. Along with the black who at least is pretty determined not to change his mind about what color he is. I don't know what happened to Wrinkly. One morning he just wasn't there. He didn't wander to the space next door, he wasn't found flat in the nest, there weren't any signs of rats or other foul play, just a vanished baby bunny. I still don't know what happened to him. I think he may have been a chocolate, too.
Out and About at 2 weeks old
Two weeks old and already with opened eyes and out wandering around. They open their eyes around ten days old, so I guess they've had a while to look around. They're starting to eat solid foods as well as drinking water so that will make it easier for Lotus to feed them. The little black one is especially fat, he might be part pig.
I still don't know the genders, it will be a few more weeks before that will be able to be determined. The black may stay here just because of his size and vigor, the chocolate tort (the light orange one) will probably also stay here because of the color. That one is the smallest one, though, so not sure if it will become part of the breeding herd? If it's a doe, most likely, if it's a buck, it may move away. It's still too early to tell.
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