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First Rabbit Harvest

I harvested 9 bucks from the Dome 2 rabbit colony … 6 yesterday and 3 today.

Whew.  That’s a lot of work.

I’ve got the pelts pickling in a bucket, to be tanned in a few weeks.

The rabbits are going to spend a few days in a ice bath to age.

I saved and froze the heads as summer time dog treats.

I even retained the offal (kidneys, livers, hearts) for Hooey to eat.

Still need to bury the remaining innards to compost them, and sanitize the processing station, but that can wait until tomorrow.

I certainly know my way around the insides of a rabbit now.

My technique seemed to improve with each successive harvest.  Skinning is probably the biggest pain in the butt.   Eviscerating is pretty straight-forward.

Hopefully I’ll only have to repeat this task once per quarter.

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New Duck Refuge Electric Fence

On a whim, I bought 5 baby ducklings yesterday to add to the farm fam.

They will be in the barn brooder for 4 to 6 weeks, but I decided to get busy today transitioning the work-in-progress pond into a dedicated duck refuge.

Step 1 was to install a new 90 foot, 3-strand electric fence to keep the donkeys away from the pond area.

Had to teach myself a few new skills, and learned what a “spinning jenny” is and why you need one to make a 12.5 gauge wire fence.

Overall, not bad for my first such fence.  I need to upgrade one of the terminal posts to add more rigidity to sustain the tension created by three tight wires all pulling in one direction.  But, for now, I think it will keep the donks out of the pond, so I can start building out the ‘duck infrastructure.’

 

 

 

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Local Deer & Hooey’s Response …

Our local deer herd has between 12 and 15 head, and they’re constantly zig-zagging around the property, teasing Hooey until she chases them off prop.

Saw a few of them hanging out in the park/pasture as we got home in the truck.

… and Hooey gave ’em an ear full, yelling (in German) “stinky deer” … “vile venison!”

 

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New Baby Ducklings!

I went to Tractor Supply today to buy some chicken and donkey feed, and they had a bunch of baby ducklings that … to be honest … were just too damn cute NOT to buy.

We have an ag-pond project underway in the donkey pasture, so I figure the baby ducks will force me to put a bit more thought into the pond design.

 

 

 

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Charcoal Retort Kiln Project Update …

So, I’m on my third batch of lump charcoal production today, learning how to fine tune the kiln with each batch.

The first batch didn’t reduce to coal as much as I hoped, so I had to re-process about half the wood by including it in the next batch.

Second batch burned much hotter and more uniformly, but still left about 25-30% of the wood unburnt.

For the third batch (photo’s below), I cut the wood down to shorter lengths and packed the burn barrel less tightly, leaving a bit more air space.  Will probably run this batch for about 3+ hours instead of 2.5 hours.

Loaded up the kiln for batch #3.
Starting to accumulate lump charcoal created in the charcoal kiln.
Partial output from one batch in the charcoal kiln.
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Bluetooth Sleuth!!!

Product Endorsement: Bluetooth Finder App (BLE Finder)
 
Hello everyone. Just thought I would share this cool piece of technology.
 
Ever lose a bluetooth device of some sort (e.g. FitBit, Activity Monitor, Phone, Asset Tracker, …)?
 
I use SensorPush remote temperature and humidity sensors to monitor things on the ol’ homestead, for example the chicken brooder, greenhouse, etc.
 
The sensors and technology in general are very cool, but they cost about $50 each.
 
I recently misplaced a sensor somewhere in the barn. The SensorPush app on my iPhone registered that it could still sync with the sensor, and I was getting temp and humidity readings, but I had no idea where the sensor was. Drove me NUTS! Had to buy another sensor for the greenhouse as a result.
 
This morning, on a whim, I poked around on the Web to see if there were any technologies that might help me find a missing SensorPush sensor. Cut to the chase: couldn’t find a SensorPush-specific tool, but I did find a FREE app on the Apple App Store called Bluetooth Finder (or BLE Finder).
 
I just downloaded the app, walked out in the barn, and found the damn sensor buried in the dirt in the floor of the chicken brooder room. AWESOME!
 
It was actually sort of fun. The app ‘sees’ all bluetooth transmitters within the Bluetooth standard range (about 30 meters) and let’s you pick which one you want to ‘find.’ Then, it uses the tried and true cold … warmer … warm … getting hotter … hot … continuum we all know from childhood to walk you into the device’s location. When you get close enough, it transitions into a signal strength meter, which allows you to really zero into the device’s location.
 
Absolutely awesome piece of technology. Free. Fun. Just saved me $50.
 
Attaching pics of the BLE Finder app and the sensor I just found.
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~14 Gallons of Rabbit Manure … Per DAY!

I generally de-poop the Dome 2 rabbitry every morning, and usually get about 14-15 gallons of new rabbit pellet manure per day.

Going to be literally SWIMMING in organic compost this (and every!) growing season, which ain’t a bad thing.

Best I can tell, there’s still only about 20 rabbits in the dome.  As soon as they hit their reproductive maturity (any time now) I expect a few new litters of kits, which means it’ll be time to start thinning the herd.

Rabbit stew, anyone?

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You know you’re a farmer when …

I’ve noticed recently that I have to redo my fingerprints (security/access control) on my iPhone about every 2 or 3 days because my prints are apparently changing that often due to all the outside project work.

Shhhh … don’t tell any ‘criminal element’ types you might know that farming can obscure your biometric identity.  Gangsters and mafioso in the old days used to pay good money to alter their prints.  Hell, just shovel a bunch of manure, or lug a bunch of cinder blocks from here to there.  Save yourself a few bucks.  😉

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New Weather Station

I installed a new Ambient Weather WS-2902 WiFi OSPREY solar powered wireless weather station out in the garden pasture yesterday.

The station has been integrated with a number of global weather networks to share my local weather reporting, including Wunderground.com (Station ID: KNCEFLAN10) and Weathercloud.net (Station ID:  FCL-Garden-WS1) and AmbientWeather.net (Station ID:  FCL-Garden-WS1).

Note that I have also added the current weather readings to the top of the panel to the right using the Weather Station 3 plugin’s Current Outdoor Conditions widget.  Pretty slick.

So, if you’re ever curious to see what our current weather conditions are, visit the FCL site, or click on one of the two links above.

 

DEF

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Donkey Down!

We got about 2 inches of snow the other day … no big deal.

Midday yesterday, I looked outside and saw a big dark lump on top of Hooey’s trout pond.  Looked closer and saw that it was Soleil, so I thought maybe she fell through the ice.

Went out to investigate and found her not THROUGH the ice, but instead just splayed out on top.  I guess she walked out, hit the ice, and WHOOOP … down she went.  No idea how long she was there, but she was cold (shivering), wet and looked really scared.

I went and scared up a bag of sand and a bag of pea gravel and packed it all in around her legs.  Not sure why, but she bit me three times.  Not hard, but more like PLEASE HURRY.

I couldn’t get her to try to stand, so I had to deadlift her fat ass up off the ground and put her back legs down beneath her.  Then, I had to hoist her front end up and get her forelegs down.  THANKFULLY … she could stand and I didn’t see any evidence of a broken leg, which would have been a death sentence … just like a horse.

She was smart enough (I guess) to just stand there, until I spread my jacket out in front of her for more traction.  Got her to take a few steps forward, then she trotted up the pond berm slowly beat feet back to the barn stall.

Might sound nutty … but when I went and fetched a 5-gallon bucket of warm water and brought it to her in her stall, she had a look on her face that said THANK YOU.

Video:  Soleil DOWN

Video:  Soleil Back UP