It's May first, so that's 'May Day' and in Hawaii, that usually also means it's 'Lei Day' but what with this pouring rain, nobody is out and about much so we can't see the lei.
It is springtime, though, so the onions are blooming even in the pouring rain. These are a smaller onion, bigger than chives, but smaller than the big bulb onions. They are a 'walking' onion. These flowers are supposed to turn into little bulbs and then resprout once the stalk leans over and 'plants' them. This method would plant the new bulbs a somewhat reasonable distance from the parent plant. Rather a brilliant way to space out the new plants.
Most onions won't make bulbs in Hawaii. There's a 'long day' and 'short day' length onion. Some of the short day onions will bulb up, one of the nicer varieties of those is the 'Maui' variety of onion but we don't have any of that variety. Several of the larger onions here were grown from the onion roots cut off of grocery store onions. Since they don't make bulbs, the greens are used instead. It has a somewhat milder onion flavor than the cut up bulbs and is rather nice in a green salad.
We're now between major projects so hopefully we can get caught up on all the little projects that had been put on hold. Such as updating the website? I don't know if you noticed we missed a few months of updates? Although, this is May First, so this update is almost like a really late April update? Well, anyway, one of the major projects which is now finished was selling our house. That took several months to get it ready and then sold, but it's now done. On the last day when taking final pictures, the gardenia bush in the back yard had flowers on it so I clipped some as a farewell present.
This gardenia bush was most likely planted around 1972 or so. It was planted by Chester Matsumura and he was really good at selecting superior plants so even though I don't know exactly what variety it is, it's a really nice one.
The flowers smelled lovely, however; like most cut flowers, after a week or so, they're ready to be thrown out. BUT! One of them had grown roots! So Chester's gardenia will now live on in our next yard. Hopefully, anyway, it's still a quite young sprout so at this point it's more of a hope than a certainity. Hope is always good, though, and a hopeful chance is better than none.
When shifting yards, it's always nice to take favorite plants along whenever possible. I've been told this is a 'Lokelani' rose. It's a climbing thornless red rose with a lovely scent. I'm rather fond of it. It is a vigorous grower and enthusiastic with flowers. What's not to like?
Not all roses grow the same, I finally found the "Zéphirine Drouhin" rose that I had been searching for all over just to find out that it is a very finicky grower and it still hasn't made any flowers in the year that I've had it. That one was bought from a shop and at retail rates, too! (Generally, I try real hard not to pay retail for things.) So I expected much better of it than the Lokelani rose which was started by sticking a cutting in the ground. I was looking for a climbing scented thornless rose to cover a tea pavilion (which I still need to build) and the Zéphirine Drouhin is supposed to fit that description. Hmm, why was I looking for a different rose when the climbing, thornless sweetly scented Lokelani was available? Possibly because the existing Lokelani plant was way too big to shift around? Or perhaps I wanted one with bigger flowers. The Lokelani roses are a smaller flower than some. I can't remember right now why I wanted a different climbing thornless rose, but for whatever reason, at the time, I thought Zéphirine Drouhin was the answer, but now I know better.
The original progenitor of this newly sprouted Lokelani rose was a cutting from an old plantation garden in Ookala. Over behind where the store used to be was the remains of an old plantation house with an amazing garden. It had been overgrown for several years and Guinea grass had tried to take over but there were a few stragglers still hiding in the tall grass. This rose was there and the bulldozer was on it's way to clear the lot. The original rose bush was huge and completely swamped in Guinea grass. Some cuttings were taken from the rose as well as a grape vine and the kindly bulldozer operator gave me a giant hapuu fern which was chained to the back and drug over to the house we were living in at the time. All the plants survived although the Lokelani rose is the only one who moved with us when we went to the next house in Honokaa.
In February, this cutting was taken from the Lokelani rose bush which had been grown from a cutting of the rose at the Ookala house which had been grown from a cutting from the abandoned garden. This would make it a great-grand-bush from the original? Once this cutting gets thoroughly established (which, from the looks of it will be really soon!) it will probaly be relocated to the front garden.
I've also got some plans on getting more cuttings of Lokelani growing around the tea pavilion which I haven't built yet. The tea pavilion is still in the planning stages, although I do know where it's gonna go. Up under the big avocado tree on the 'avocado plateau' are some old foundations where a small studio house had been. They will be perfect for a tea pavilion. But, gotta get caught up on all these other little projects before starting a new one.
It being May Day is sorta the beginning of springtime, although technically spring started awhile ago. But, today is May Day so it's a perfect day for new baby bunnies! Vesuvius and Aster have six new baby bunnies.
These are Vesuvius and Aster's six newborn babies. Even though it's been raining for what seems like a week, Vesuvius still had her litter and managed to keep them mostly dry. She's in what used to be a small chicken coop and she has a flat bottomed wooden nesting box. When I found them this afternoon, two of the babies were on one side of the box and the other four were off in the corner, fortunately they all seemed warm enough. They seem vaguely damp, but mostly dry and they are still warm and seem to be doing well. I did put the two over with the other four so now they're all in one pile. Much better than two piles.
Being newborns, it's a bit difficult to ascertain their eventual colors. Their mum bun is a black tortoiseshell who has an extra-fluffy coat. Which is a good thing, in angoras. Their sire, Aster, is an albino rabbit. I'm not sure if the most pink one won't turn out white or not at this stage. There may be a white one in the litter, we will know in a few days when more hair has had time to grow out. Two of the litter are blacks, so that's an easy color to figure out. One of them may be blue, I'm hoping for a blue, it's been a few years since we've had a blue bunny. Then there's two more who aren't black and aren't white but it's still too early to tell exactly what color they may be. Perhaps some sort of tort?
Vesuvius is a tort out of a black by a tort. Aster is an albino out of a black by a lilac. If there's a tortoiseshell baby in this litter, then Aster will have to have a recessive for torts. If there's a blue, then Vesuvius will have to have a recessive for dilute colors. But, it's still a bit too early to tell.
When feeding the bunnies, Vesuvius' little ones were taken out and counted. The first picture was from several hours earlier when they were first noticed. Since all I had at feeding time to contain them was the feed can, they were stashed there while they were taken out and inspected. Not that they're eating solid foods yet, for certain sure! I'm not even sure when baby bunnies get their teeth in, I've never looked but I'd hope not for a few weeks?
Vesuvius has six babies. Yay! That's a very typical size for an English angora litter, at least for the ones around here. With her six and Aurora's three and Daisy's two, we're now up to eleven babies. However, Vesuvius' six are newborns, and she's a first time mum bun, so they could all be lost tomorrow for one reason or another so it's best not to count them. In two or three weeks, then it will be time to count baby bunnies.
The other baby bunnies are getting bigger. They grow pretty quickly for the first several months. The picture above is Daisy & Alexander's babies at about two weeks old. They aren't pink and naked anymore, they have fur but they're not fuzzy yet. They also don't quite have their eyes open, so they are possibly even a bit younger than two weeks. Anywhere from about ten days to two weeks and they will open their eyes. Of course, they could be two weeks old and sleeping, then they'd have their eyes shut, too. I should check the date of the photo and compare it to the bunny pedigree databse, but I'm too lazy right now.
Here's the same babies about two weeks later. Much more mobile, alert and at this point, they could be entirely independent of their mum bun although Daisy is still feeding them. They're out of the nest, wandering around and nibbling on grasses and eating out of the feed dish. They still haven't gotten to the really cute fuzzy stage, but they're getting there. Probably in about a week, they will be entirely on their own and Daisy will be done feeding them. That usually happens around four to five weeks old, although the baby buns would probably otherwise.
Aurora's babies are just under six weeks old now. They're pretty much weaned and all on their own. They will still be with mum bun for another few weeks, but she's not really feeding them much anymore. At this point, they're pretty much fully independent, but they still stay with mum until they're at least eight weeks old. They won't be fully adult until they're about five months old.
Just to continue with the whole fresh springtime May Day theme, there's three new baby chicks, too!
They're a mix of auracana and I forget the other breed, although there may be some feral rooster involved as well. The two outer rows of eggs in the incubator are the auracana/mix eggs and they weren't specifically hatching eggs although three chicks showed up anyway. Two more may have been fertile, but I don't think they managed to get out of their shells so we may only end up with just the three chicks out of the two dozen eggs that were set.
The two center rows in the incubator aren't due to hatch for another two and a half weeks. They're a cross between a Whiting True Blue and a Marans rooster. Which, IYAM (If You ask Me), is a lame cross. Whiting True Blue is already a cross between auracana and white leghorn in order to get a light framed chicken that lays a lot of blue eggs. Crossing those hens with a Marans rooster - who is known for laying dark brown eggs - will result in hens who lay olive colored eggs. So why bother with the blue eggs in the first place? Had they continued to cross the original hens with an Auracana rooster, then the resulting hens would continue to lay blue eggs. I suspect it's just a general barnyard mix and they at least know some of the breeds that went into them.
If any of the three chicks who just hatched turn out to be a rooster, then he should be at least half of an auracana. Hopefully he will have white earlobes to indicate a rooster who will engender hens who can lay white or light colored (such as blue) eggs. If so, then he can be bred to the hens hatched from the Whiting True Blue/Marans cross eggs. The resulting hens from that cross should go back to laying blue eggs, one can hope, anyway.
I'd prefer purebred hatching eggs, but I also want a light framed chicken that lays a lot of eggs. Some folks get all happy with a 'dual purpose' chicken, but a hen will lay for years before she goes into a stewpot so why do I care how much she weighs? She has to be fed for the five to six years she's laying eggs so a lighter weight chicken will eat less. I'm guessing the feed to egg conversion rate is much better for lighter birds. After all, white leghorns or some cross of a leghorn is the most common commercial laying hen around, aren't they? And leghorn are a light framed chicken that doesn't like to set. Well, anyway, we're counting our chickens before they hatch.
