Afternoon...um...visitor?

I do believe there's truth to the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words..."

I'm just not sure which thousand that would be!

Both pictures were taken this afternoon as I stood on the front porch. This was the second pass the chopper made!! The first one had them hovering over directly over the house, then over the neighbor's! Yes...we are wondering "what the hell!?!"

Breeding like rabbits...

Well, if there's one thing owning rabbits has shown us is that there IS truth to the old saying "breed like rabbits". We have a rabbitry full of kits right now, with all four does having litters.

Ready for some cute bunny pics? Oh of course you are!

Lily was the first in the barn to have babies this fall after we took a hiatus from breeding to let the does regain condition and to ease the load for our trip to California. It took a few tries before any of the rabbits finally were bred, and we were beyond thrilled when we went out and found little squirming bodies in Lily's nest box.

These guys are seven weeks old now and will hang around for another three before we butcher.

Blue and Josie were next. Blue had eleven kits while Josie had four, so we ended up fostering three of Blue's with Josie's litter. As the babies were born during a bitter cold snap Blue still lost two of the kits to the cold. They're growing well now and will move into growout cages in a few weeks.

This little one is one of Josie's crew, and was playing peekaboo with Mike! Too freakin' cute!

What a face! (One of Blue's crew)

Josie's crew, I think ;)

Definitely one of Blue's. This little black otter was playing hard to get, but it's one of the cutest faces out there!

Last but not least is our youngest doe, Nestle. She's a chocolate color(duh!) and is Cocoa's daughter. She kindled Thursday before last with nine babies, all alive and well and birthed in the nesting box. One of the things I've always been told is that first time moms are prone to kindling on the floors of their cages, so we are just thrilled with her. On top of that is the sheer size of the litter, which is a good sized litter for a doe of production age, let alone a first timer! She's giving good milk and all of the babies are looking great!

Miss Nestle checking to make sure we covered her babies well after taking pictures.

So little! Their ears have only bee open for a couple of days now, but the fur is coming in great!

This silly oaf is our "backup" buck, Hydro(short for Hydrox...you know...the Oreo knock offs?) He's a trip, and we're still up in the air as to whether or not we'll be keeping him around.

So, there ya have it, an update from the rabbitry. There's more pics of the bunnies, if you want to check out our photobucket album!

Shake your groove thing..

This past weekend was Jen's company xmas party. This is the 3rd one we've been to and it was the best one yet. It was also the first one not accompanied by a snowstorm. The turn out was a little light but that meant more chances of winning door prizes.

Here we are on a very rare occasion that at least one of us (that would be Jen) wasn't on the dance floor.



Jen dancing it up with the girls:



When Jen wasn't on the floor she was either refilling my drink or up requesting songs. She tells me that the caption that should go w/ this is: "No, no play some good stuff not this wedding shit." (That wasn't her saying that, btw).



This is what happens when stiff white guys dance:




This is the stiff white guy's mom, Inez (she and her husband own the company). She was out working it with the ladies.



My turn to help keep the tunes coming.



And just to prove that you can keep the party going with liberal social lubricants (I did mention it was open bar, right?) Here we are tearing up that rug again.


Anyway, we had a great time (and didn't embarrass ourselves, believe it or not) and hey, we even won a couple of those door prizes. How 'bout that?

Take care all. Til next time.

Yuletide Staycation

Hello everyone! 2009 is almost behind us and it has been another busy year.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Xmas as we certainly did though it was a quiet one at home for Jen and I. We received some wonderful, thoughtful gifts all-around: my baby sister managed to find the obscure biscuits for my biscuit joiner and got me a couple of Ohio State beanies (go Bucks!) and she got Jen a bunch of organizational supplies for her newly (mostly) completed craft room. (I'll post before and after pics as soon as I complete the chair rail).

We received a wonderful "care package" of naturally raised pork products from my dad and Joanne. We started out with some breakfast sausage Xmas morning with the French toast I made with Jen's homemade bread. We're already planning to try the bacon with blueberry pancakes this weekend.

Last Sunday, we went to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens for "Dollar Day" and it was worth every penny (one would hope, right?) We decided that 72 degrees and humid with flowers all-around qualifies as a mini-vacation. (Especially after the 17 degrees and snow the week before). They have several themed domes - we especially enjoyed the epiphyte one - even if it wasn't very photogenic. They had a display of poinsettias as one might imagine and there are actually some really pretty ones, go figure.

These were my favorites:


Jen's Favorite:

Jen and I also enjoyed the assortment of Orchids that they had (so much so that we're gonna try to make it back for the Orchid show in late February).

Can you tell that Orchids trick insects into pollinating them by pretending to be insects to mate?

They also had some pottery on display from the local college students, this was my favorite:
Anyway, I'm gonna cut this short as Jen and I are about to start our "guilty pleasures comedy movie marathon." Anyone who is interested in seeing the rest of the pics is welcome to do so at our photobucket account.

Holidays - Niagara Style

Hello everyone, we hope the holidays finds everyone well. Last weekend we took a road trip up to the Niagara peninsula to check out 283 year old Fort Niagara for Christmas by Candlelight. Our visit happened to coincide with the anniversary of the British's recapture of the fort from the Americans during the war of 1812. It was quite the fascinating visit. The tour was pretty much self-guided from room to room in the castle where we met up with various reenactors.

Here is one of the massive gates. (Jen's helping me by illuminating it w/ her flashlight).



Here is the supply area with some of the provisions available.


Here is some of the gear needed to hunt & trap for food in the treacherous New York winters.


It was quite chilly while we were there and while the castle did us all a huge service by blocking the Canadian winds that roar off of lake Ontario, it was far from from warm and cozy though the pics may make it look otherwise.

The kitchen was the warmest room of all and, compared to the others, was the coziest by far. (This room was the busiest all night - I'm thinking that the roaring fire had something to do with that).


Across the parking lot from the fort's visitor center is the Old Fort Niagara lighthouse which was built in 1872 and decommissioned in 1993.



Of course we had to stop at the falls on the way up because, apparently, Jen thinks that late December is the best time to see the falls. (FYI she has never managed to see the falls any other time of year). Needless to say, it was cold! 17 degrees with a windchill of maybe +2 degrees.

This is what happens when those frigid winds get a hold of the mist.


Ok, I feel like I need a blanket. Don't worry, though. I have a much warmer post planned for next time. Until then.

On Vacation...

Well, we've an update, but it isn't from the farm! We're on a much needed vacation and enjoying ourselves immensely! We arrived in California Wednesday, and after a lovely evening spent with our friends we drove down to the Monterey pennisula yesterday. I got to see my first sunset on the Pacific ocean and Mike took tons of pictures at the beach.

This little guy sat for umpteen photos and when we were done took himself over to another couple and asked them to take photos too!

Today we're heading back up the coast to take a tour of Alcatraz and meet back up with our friends. They're going to be showing us the "local" side of San Francisco tomorrow and even more sights before we leave.

But, it looks like the sun is coming up outside, so we're off to see what other pictures we can take!

Hope everything's going well for everyone, and we'll post more pictures when we get back!

At Summer's End

Well...it's hard to say that summer's ending here, when it seems it never really started. The last week has been gorgeous, but you can't help but feel the arrival of fall imminent in the mornings when the air is crisp and the dew heavy.
I know, I know...we've been terribly lax in posting the goings on here at Three Lil' Acres. Let me see what I can do to bring you up to speed!

Mike warred with the weather to keep the garden alive this year. He had a little more luck with the squash and cukes than last year, but they were still hit really hard by the plagues of various mildews that the cold damp summer encouraged. He had similar problems with the tomatoes and countless were lost to blossom end rot. We're finding that the soil here is rediculously out of balance and will be amending quite thoroughly this fall.

But, we had some successes.

An okra flower. This is an experiment to see if we like them. We're hoping to try some okra pickles!

These are the flowers for Purple Podded Pole Beans. Aren't they pretty? While these will never replace Kenntucky Wonder for flavor, they were still better than storebought and really neat to grow.

Now, one part of the garden that has been a resounding success is the peppers! Mike put in Jimmy Nardello frying peppers(the long red ones), Bull Nose and King of the North Bell Peppers, Czech Black hot peppers and Jalepeno peppers. We're still harvesting steadily on these, and enjoying them thoroughly!

The beans were another success. Mike has put up somewhere close to ten pounds of green beans, and that's beyond what we've been eating fresh. The tomatoes are producing, though not as well as we'd hoped, and the flavor is...well, flat. And that's for ALL of the varieties grown, Blue Beech, Rutgers, Cherokee Purple and Speckled Roman. We're not sure if that's because of the deficient soil or because it didn't get hot enough up here.

On other fronts, our new laying flock is freeranging and should be laying eggs in about a month. It looks like we got one rooster in the bunch - a Barred Rock that has been dubbed "Rocky"(of course). And I still maintain that there's nothing funnier to listen to than an adolescent rooster trying on his crow. Here in a month we'll sell off the extra pullets to bring us down to our 15 hens.

The three laying hens are doing well, though they do enjoy picking on the young pullets. They've been paying their own way(and then some) with egg sales since the spring and I can't wait for the pullets to start laying so we can expand our customer base. I've regular customers at work and a few others that buy eggs occasionally.

So...that's a brief rundown on the place! We'll try to get better about posting(I know...I say that all the time)!