Our hearts and best hopes go to everyone impacted by the Covid-19 virus.
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.
It's still out there and getting fiercer! Be vigilant and continue to be safe!
Wear your mask!
Wash your hands!
yeah, I know, it sucks, but do it anyway
There is now a vaccine, several of them, actually. Soon we will hopefully be done with this wretched virus. So hang in there and be safe for just a few more weeks.
Happy New Year
2021 has got to be better!
Wear your mask!
Wash your hands!
yeah, I know, it sucks, but do it anyway
There is now a vaccine, several of them, actually. Soon we will hopefully be done with this wretched virus. So hang in there and be safe for just a few more weeks.
2021 has got to be better!
New Year = New Bunnies!
more baby bunnies are always good!
New babies for 2021
and this year's name theme is?
A new year needs new bunnies, doesn't it? Black Lotus and DaffyDill have a litter of six new baby bunnies. There's five black ones and one pink one. The pink one is probably going to be a Ruby Eyed White, but it could also turn out to be some sort of tortoiseshell. I'd expected a few torts in this litter and there don't seem to be any. Which is odd, since DaffyDill was a tortoiseshell and Lotus has had tortoiseshell offspring in her previous litter, so we know she carries the recessive for torts.
Well, I guess it's just the roll of the genetic dice. It's just a possibility for each baby born, if it will be tort or not. Since Daffy could only give recessives for tortoiseshell, that means it's a 50/50 chance for each baby to get the one recessive for tort that Lotus carries. There six rolls and at least five of them came up no torts. The jury is still out on if the last roll was a tort or not. Even if it turns out to be a REW instead of a tort, it could still genetically be a tort under the REW whitewash.
With new baby bunnies, this also means we need to figure out the new name theme for this year. Last year's bunnies' names - all the ones who stay here at Hillside Farm Hawaii, anyway, got a name that starts with "V". Originally, it was 'V' for "Virus", but fortunately, by the end of the year it had become 'V' for "Vaccine". Yay! Not, of course, that many of the everyday sorts of folks have actually gotten the vaccine yet, but at least it's out there.
Now the baby bunnies are twice as old as they were in the first picture. They have fatter tummies, but they really haven't grown much. I should check the dates on the pictures, maybe it's Day One and Day Two, not Newborn to Day One? Of course, from newborn to one day old isn't actually all that much time for them to change. The pink one seems even pinker somehow and has a very fat tummy.
I did add up the bunny numbers for 2020. There were a total of fifty four babies born here last year, which may be a record, I'd have to go check.
Of the fifty four born last year, five of them didn't make it. Which is sad, but baby bunnies are delicate and that's one reason why they have large litters. Two of the five who didn't survive were in the same litter and were born very much smaller than the others. We don't usually have runts in the litters, but this is some new genetics. I don't have a lot of data on the two parent bunnies since they don't have complete pedigrees. One of their parents was an unknown 'wooler' bunny brought in from the mainland from a spinner's FB group. Angora bunny breeders will sell livestock they don't want to keep for breeding and isn't good enough to be a 'show' bunny as a 'wooler'. They go to a home where their wool will be harvested and made into yarn. Almost always these bunnies are sold without a pedigree since I guess the breeder then thinks maybe they won't be bred. Apparently, there's still a lot of 'oops' litters and then it's hard to know who the bunnies are related to. I sell all the bunnies from Hillside Farm with a pedigree. Our islands are to small not to know who your bunny is related to.
I suspect the two may have been too closely related, perhaps, which may be why two of the litter didn't make it. Those two buns won't be mated again, since there were two in their litter who didn't make it. The other deaths were from just basically baby bunnies being very delicate. Baby bunnies are born small, hairless and helpless. They can't even walk for the first week, if they end up somewhere that they can chill, the mum bun can't pick them up like a mom cat can and move them to somewhere warm. They open their eyes around ten days old. Once they reach a couple weeks old, then they can move around and help themselves if they get to a chilled area.
But, in any case, there were fifty four babies born here last year. Forty nine of them survived to adulthood and we kept nine of them. Which would seem that the herd would be larger this year, but last year we sold adult bunnies as well as young bunnies so our herd number as of January first was still only twenty one. Well, twenty one official herd members, there's four young bunnies who will be flying away this weekend and then the six newborns who aren't officially part of the herd numbers. The number of "How many rabbits do you have" always seems to be a moving target.
I do plan another fairly aggressive breeding program this year, there's a waiting list for bunnies plus we could use a few more here. As they get bred, it will be noted on the "In the Nestbox" page, at least, we hope so.
I also hope to update the webpage and farm blog more often, although so far it's not weekly like I'd hoped.
In other bunny news, some of the last babies from 2020 are almost old enough to fly away.
I think English angoras are almost absurdly cute when they reach around eight weeks old. Don't these little ones seem to be so?
The little chocolate one is a doe and she will be flying off to Maui. Two of the black ones are bucks and will fly off to Oahu. One of the black ones is a doe and she will be staying here at Hillside.
Those are four of the litter of six, there's two tortoiseshells in the litter as well. Both of the torts are 'black tortoiseshells' and both are male. A tortoiseshell is when the color of the bunny doesn't fully extend over the whole body of the bunny. Since these two guys have black noses, they are a 'black' tort. If they had brown noses, then they'd be 'chocolate tortoiseshells' which almost seems like some sort of pastry.
Hillside Viktor and Friend
Viktor is the one on the right, Friend doesn't have an official name yet.
Of the two bucks, the one who is slightly bigger and a slightly bit more fuzzy will be staying here to replace his sire, DaffyDill, as a new herd buck. Friend, who doesn't have an official name yet, will be flying off to Oahu on Saturday. They're both good bucks, but we don't need two tortoiseshell bucks.
As a breeding herd, it's important to keep the best bucks possible. Also, it's important to keep as many color genes as possible. Since a tortoiseshell is a 'double recessive' color (i.e., it takes two matching allele/genes to make a particular color, that color is considered a 'recessive' color), anyway, since tort is a recessive, a tort bred to a tort = 100% torts. So, for breeding purposes, a black bunny with a recessive for tort - such as the doe we're keeping from this litter - is a better breeding option since she has possibility for having offspring with more colors.
There they are side by side. Viktor has slightly longer wool on him, he also seems to have longer ears? Length of ear isn't specifically mentioned in the Standards of Perfection for the English angora, that I know of anyway. Quality of coat is the most important thing. Their ears are also supposed to be upright and close together is more desirable - according to those who say these sorts of things. Since the bunnies here are a fiber herd to make bunny fluff for Hula Bunny yarn, IOHO, (In Our Humble Opinion) ear set isn't overly important. We've not had a bunny show on this island for years and it doesn't look like we will anytime soon, so the bunnies can have disreputable ears as long as they have excellent fluff.
The last bunny color is Venus, we still aren't quite sure what color she is or if she's some color other than officially 'black'.
Technically, she is a 'solid' colored 'black' bunny, but she still has that chocolate color on her head. She should have a completely black head and for that matter, she should have fuzzy ears, too. I kept her just to see if she was going to continue with the chocolate color on her head, she probably won't be bred much since she seems to not be fitting into any proper color category. Her great grandfather was the one without a pedigree, so maybe it's some sort of oddball gene in from him? Although, what that gene would be, I don't know. It's not chocolate, she doesn't seem to be sable. She would be a normal 'black' angora bunny if it weren't for that chocolate on her head. A 'black' angora bunny looks gray when their coat gets longer because the length of the hair dilutes the pigment. When she grows in a new coat, it will appear black until it's had time to grow long again and dilute to gray.
December's rush rental repair, refurbishment and cleaning seems to be finally finished. Which is actually a pretty quick turn around time for the amount of work that was done. There's new renters coming in tomorrow so we have to skitter over there today and gather up all the tools and supplies.
In 1974 when this house was built, it was sort of considered somewhat improper to have the kitchen observable from the living room. Folks didn't want food odors wandering around the house or something. So there's movable 'shoji' doors which can be drawn across the opening to close off the kitchen. We never really opened them very much, but they're there in case someone feels like not doing the dishes and letting the folks in the living room notice dirty dishes?
Painting the kitchen has done wonders for brightening up the place. I suppose the cabinet doors should all be replaced as well as the laminate countertop and the linoleum floor, but there was enough work to get done without adding in more on the 'to do' list.
There aren't pictures of it, but a lot of light fixtures were replaced, new linoleum tile in both bathrooms, new faucet handles, the carport was painted, the back lanai was repaired, the yard was cleared, too. Hawaii yards need a lot more than just mowing, it was half jungle, but that's been whacked back for awhile.
Hopefully the two rental houses will behave themselves for awhile so we can get the Workshop organized.
New Project for 2021
it only looks like a leftover old project
The main reason we bought the property that the 'Extreme Fixer' (now the 'Little Rental') is on is because it also has this huge workshop up in the back of the proeprty.
It's about 85% - 90% finished, still has a valid permit from 2005 and will be a wonderful workshop when it's finally finished. It's passed it's foundation inspection which is huge, although it failed the framing inspection because there wasn't enough Simpson fittings put in, among other things.
The first project on the New Project is to just get to the thing. We have way too many varieties of seriously tall grass around here so it's War on Tall Grass Year. Not sure if that is mentioned in the naming of the various years? According to the Chinese calendar, 2021 is the 'Year of the Metal Ox'. Last miserable year was the 'Year of the Metal Rat', which may explain the pestilence and plague of 2020. Anyway, for us here with our newly invented 'Hillside Calendar of Year Names' this will be the 'War on Tall Grass' year. The sheep have been helping since last August, but they're still working on their side of the fence and can't help us up near the workshop until we get it fenced. Another project, oh frabjalous joy.
They have done a great job of getting parts of their fenced area almost pasture like, but they still have a long way to go. The neighbor's sheep seem to want to help Cypress and Flower eat the grass, too. The neighbors also have chickens helping on their side of the fence, but I don't know if chickens do much to keep grasses down.
Sheep like to spend a lot of time laying down and chewing their cud. I guess that's part of their 'eat the grass' routine. They have a spot behind the garden that they like for the middle of the day.
A good day's work is if we can clear a 12' x 12' (4 metres x 4 metres) patch. We have a very robust clearing crew. Actually, with this stuff, just sheer persistence does wonders.
After several days' work, we are able to drive the little lawn tractor towing it's small trailer up to the Workshop. What with the continued War on Tall Grass, we can now get the truck to almost up there.
This is just up to the back side of the Workshop, there's still grass clearing to get to the other side and eventually to circle the whole place. I did just randomly pick up a fairly long bit of grass off the grass pile and measured it, since I had a tape measure in hand at the time. It was eighteen feet long and I'd not searched out for a specifically extra long stem of grass.
I'm not sure if it would be interesting or scary to look for a particularly tall stem of grass and measure it? Do we really want to know that grass can grow well over twenty feet tall? It does have different growth habits. Some of it grows in nasty clumps and has little sticker hairs on the stems. That's Guinea Grass and the type I despise the most. There's also Cane, Elephant and Rezenor grasses, they're not as bad. The cane and elephant grasses seem to grow more as single stalks instead of in a tight wad. Those are easier to clip with clippers, although it's still a huge chore to remove them. A pair of clippers seems to be our tool of choice. A brush blade scythe will get the grass down when it's under ten feet tall but a grass blade sycthe just gets sneered at by any grass over four or five feet tall. Wish it was fenced so we could deploy the sheep.
Other than making a place for a car to drive, it's also nice to be able to almost walk around the building. This is the back corner on the sheep pasture side of the building. Eventually, a driveway will go up alongside this side of the building that doesn't have any carport openings. That will be a fairly high on the list project since being able to access the workshop without having to go through the sheep pasture will be a good thing.
This is the other back corner of the Workshop. There's a property pin in there somewhere about thirty feet from the corner, I think. I can bring up the AutoCAD drawing for the property and measure the distance and get an idea of how far away it sould be. There should be a property pin in there somewhere past that pile of rubbish, most of which seems to be old small 'cube' style refrigerators. This whole area was carpeted at one time, too. Obviously, someone worked at the hotels and got a whole pile of stuff when one of them did renovations. But, the grass covered it all and turned it all into rubbish so now we get to dig it out and haul it off to the dump.
I think those tall posts with a cross piece of some sort used to be a tall covered boat parking area of some sort? Probably it will become more obvious once more of the tall grass is removed. Wonder what sort of interesting things will be in there? You know, I'm seriously and really, really, really glad that Hawaii doesn't have snakes.
The Avocado Plateau
it's a better project if it has a fancy name?
This is now (at least for awhile until another designation comes along) "The Avocado Plateau". It's basically a flat spot on the front or oceanside (aka 'makai' in Hawaii) side of the Workshop. In the middle of the flat spot is a honkin' huge avocado tree that has those ginormous (well over two pound) and very creamy avocados. This tree may have tastier avocados than the 'Lehua' avocado tree we used to have in the back yard at our other house. So, 'Avocado Plateau' is a good name for it. There's a road that circles in front of the plateau, although that's currently covered in tall grass and I'm not sure how wide it is. I think we will be able to drive on it and circle the workshop once it's cleared. Another 2021 project.
And sitting on the side of the Avocado Plateau, is the big satellite dish which I think will make an excellent pavilion roof or possibly a trellis to grow beans and roses. Hmm, maybe grapes? Maybe beans, roses and grapes? It's twelve feet across so it's pretty big. Out on the edge of the Plateau is the drop off to the roadway that circles below it. I think a pavilion along that edge will be a lovely thing.
This is the view from the Avocado Plateau. Almost nicer than the one from the front lanai of the Little Rental. The gray roof down below is the Little Rental so even though this is in the back yard of the property the Little Rental is on, because of the elevation changes, it seems like a separate property.
One of the major projects to finish off the Workshop will be installing a driveway. This is the view from where the driveway will be. It will go right over that pile of grass in the middle of the slope, then up past the side of the hedge and then up to behind the Workshop. The pavilion will be somewhere over on the right side of the picture somewhere above that yellow green Guinea grass.
I guess this is a 'before' picture of the pavilion roof or trellis roof, which ever it turns out to be. Although there was a bit of work to get it to this point since it had been covered all over by creeper vine. So, in 2021 and with this property, it will be "look under vines and find dead refrigerators". Let's hope that isn't a theme that lasts all year long. It will be a good thing to get a road up there that the truck and trailer can use so a lot of this rubbish can be hauled off.
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