Stacking Blocks
another hillside terrace garden

The last raised bed garden was built almost a year ago. It was put in at the beginning of the pandemic as the 'Apocalypse Garden'. Mostly because it was a fun name, not that we were really expecting that level of chaos. Although, considering how chancy it has become to get garden seeds, maybe the name was more prophetic than I knew?

In any case, the new garden is also a terrace for the hillside as well as a weeding device. When there's a garden there, there's not Guinea, panic, elephant, Reznor or any other tall grass there. At the moment, the garden construction is at the putting in the first layer of weed mat, which is down near the bottom of the bed and will have a couple feet of soil on top of it. We've already done the 'clear the tall grass away' part of the project, although there's still a bit left to be cleared but the majority of it is gone.

The overall plan was to quickly build this garden, then build the little sheep shed so they can stay dry in the rain and then go work on the storage units in the carport of the Little Rental. So much for plans! I was happily stacking concrete blocks for the new raised bed garden and then woke up the next morning with a pulled muscle screaming at me. Urgh! As long as deep breaths or coughing isn't required, it doesn't hurt much. So, it looks like a couple days of 'no concrete block lifting' is in order. That also kinda means no building a sheep shed and other construction projects. Oh wellos! At least now I have time to update the website.

While clearing away the tall grasses, it became apparent that at one time there had been a stairway up to the back yard. It will need to be rebuilt, but shouldn't be too hard. The strange thing is that the gate wasn't especially placed to line up with any stairs, it is just sheer chance that they line up so well.

Somewhere up behind the sheep is where their sheep shed will go. Some of the materials have been dug out of where ever we'd stashed them and have started being hauled uphill. We got these roof trusses at a yard sale about three or four years ago and figured they'd come in handy for something sometime. Maybe a sheep shed? The truss in the back is just barely inside the sheep's space. The truss in front still needs to be dragged up hill some more.

The sheep get their snacks by the back gate so now the chickens like to hang out there hoping for a hand out, too. The white hen on the left is Henny Penny. Her parents were a feral rooster and a white leghorn hen. Since her sire is the feral rooster, she lays like a feral hen even though she's half white leghorn. So, she lays a few eggs and then immediately sits on them.

The next white hen is White Hen. Not a very imaginative name, but oh well. She's the daughter of Henny Penny and Red Ricky, the rooster. Ricky is a pure auracana rooster even though he was hatched out by Henny Penny. We got some eggs from friends with auracanas and swapped them out with Henny Penny's eggs so she hatched better chicks.

Since White hen is from Ricky & Henny Penny, White Hen is half auracana, one quarter white leghorn and one quarter feral. There's also a black hen, named - of course - "Black Hen". But, Black Hen is off sitting on some eggs so she's not waiting at the gate for a snack with everyone else. Black Hen just appeared one day, haven't a clue what type of chicken she is. Possibly a feral from the looks of her.

The two sheep are Flower and Cypress. They're supposed to be clearing the back yard and making it into a pasture but it's taking awhile. We like them anyway, sheep are surprisingly fun pets.

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The "In the Nestbox" page
has been updated as of February 1st, 2021.
But, it really needs more updating since now there's more baby bunnies.

Veronica & Aster's Babies

Our albino buck, Aster, and a young black doe, Veronica, had a small litter a week ago. The babies are not quite to the opening the eyes stage. Two albino and a black, so not very many, but this is Veronica's first litter. She did make a nest and have them in the nest, so that's a great first litter for an inexperienced doe.

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Lotus & Vinnie's babies about an hour old

Hillside Black Lotus and Whimsical Woods Vincent have a new litter of nine babies! Yay!

This is her third litter and his first. Having an experienced mum bun does a lot towards having things go smoothly. She even had them a day early. Although, with that many, she was probably just glad to not have to carry them around anymore.

Lotus & Vinnie's babies about half a day old

These are the same babies about a half day later. They've dried off and aren't so shiny anymore. Haven't a clue as to genders and not even all that sure about colors yet. There's a couple agouti, which is good, we've been short on that color for awhile.

As the babies get older, their colors will become more apparent. I should go take more pictures of them, haven't taken any pictures today.

Okay, did ya miss me? I went out and got some more pictures of baby bunnies.

Lotus & Vinnie's babies one day old

Two of the babies are much larger than the others, not sure why. Usually litters have been more uniform in size than this one. Oh well, we will see how they do. If the littlest ones don't get enough to eat, I'll supplement them a bit or hold Lotus so they can get a drink without competition from their bigger littermates.

As for colors in the litter, it's still kinda unknown. The two biggest are possibly chocolate or lilac? There's two agouti and two black? Dunno what the darker ones with sort of a reddish tone to them will be. Well, a few more days and they'll get it sorted out.

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Another reason why I have a pulled muscle is that we've been removing the old carport at the Little Rental. That's where the new driveway is gonna go, although so far the excavator hasn't shown up. He was going to show up the first week of February, but folks kept finding things for him to do at his previous jobsite. That sort of thing happens when there's a handy excavator around.

Some of the roofing and roof rafters from the old carport are going to become the new sheep shed, although we will probably have to buy some more stuff to build the sheep shed, too. Depends, though, on what we build, there's quite a bit of 'stuff' around here to work with.

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One of the reasons why there's a plethora of materials at hand when we want to build something is yard sales. The roof trusses for the sheep shed were a yard sale find several years ago. Last Saturday, this was the yard sale find. I've been using a small wicker desk, but since we're going to be renting out the Little Rental furnished, it's going to need a desk. Since the little wicker desk is perfect for over there, I needed a new one for here. This was something decided last week and the first thing I see at the only yard sale I went to this weekend was this desk. It is amazing sometimes how quickly things appear once we ask for them.

Don't worry, it's in sections so the drawers can be moved to the ends of the top desk section and then it will look like a normal desk. It's all solid wood - maybe teak stained dark? There's also nice details like dovetails and a boards above and below each drawer to keep them separate. It's a well built desk.

As 'brown furniture' it's not a trendy thing. As a roll top, it's hard to put a computer monitor on it. However, it comes apart into four pieces so I'll use the two drawer sections and the top section and put the roll top somewhere else. Be a handy bill paying station somewhere, don't you think? Maybe build a flat table for it? Well, that's a project for later. Right now I'm polishing and getting the desk ready to replace my smaller desk. It will be nice to have more drawers in the desk and more room to spread things out. Maybe I'll keep the website updated more often with a bigger desk to work from?

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