Playing in the dirt :)

This is Colorado for you. This morning we woke up to sunny skies. By 12 pm it was snowing. By 1 pm the sun was out again and it was nice and warm. Today we planted out the cooler weather seedlings and also planted turnip, rutabaga and snap pea seeds. I LOVE the smell of that fresh, rich dirt, it's lovely. We also started more warmer weather seedlings. Mid May marks our approximate last freeze date.

We still have to clean out the rabbits and figure out a new chicken coop. Those chicks are HUGE now and not quite as cute as they were when we first got them, LOL. They'll need to go outside soon.

Speaking of dirt and chickens, while we were turning over the soil the kids were finding earthworms and feeding them to the chickens who thought they were in heaven! Funny biddies.

Where's my worm!?

On the moving to a homestead effort: We have saved up enough for a 20 to 30 % deposit on the property we're looking at in Missouri and have contacted a local bank to find out if we can qualify for a 2nd home loan so we can get started. We plan on buying the property and start paying it off while we're still here and DH has a great paying job. Exciting stuff!

Bok Bok

Two weeks ago we got our first chickens. Since the earliest we could get chicks is in April we decided to get some older hens to start out with so we can have eggs earlier. We found three lovely 4 month old pullets and spent a weekend setting up the area to keep them in. We got a white leghorn, black sexlink and red sexlink.

Aren't they purdy?

This weekend DH finished modifications on their coop which used to be a rabbit hutch that didn't quite work out for our rabbits. DH had to put in bigger wire in the bottom so all the poop can fall through under their roosting area. Of course the girls are SO curious about what's going on and had to be part of everything!

Their actual roost area is another box section that fits on top of where DH is currently working in this photo.

DH also made modification to their waterer so it can hang instead of being on the ground where it got sand kicked into it constantly. I think they appreciate the modification!

We haven't gotten any eggs yet, but I can tell you that our whole family is enjoying the antics of the chickens immensely! They are MUCH more entertaining than rabbits could ever hope to be, LOL!

Meat Rabbit setup and more

11 kits!

Here's our new setup.  We got hamster cages for free on Craigslist and joined them together to make bigger cages.  Bought the floor pieces from Klubertanz, et voila!  Awesome bunny cages!

Mama bun with nesting box.

We used the plans at this site to build our nesting boxes.  We made them bigger since NZWs are bigger rabbits.  We chose wire floors for the nesting boxes, definitely worked great!

Rabbit setup

We also got a great little 10 x 10 metal shed for free on Craigslist.  Put it back together, included a window and that made a neat rabbit shed.

Craigslist came in handy again for the shipping pallets we used as stands for the two grow out cages in the front of this picture.

View of a grow out cage

Just about butcher size!

Notice the fan - rabbits don't tolerate heat very well!

Mr Dubbs

Our Meat Rabbits

I'm going back in time and adding photos of the rabbits we got in 2007.  We started with a trio of breeders and in the first 8 months we put 52 rabbits in our freezer.  Pretty good return!

NZW babies

Mama bun

Dubbs - our buck

Aww, so sweet.

Sniffy - doe.