Life

We have witnessed many things since starting this new life... new life, death, growth, and change.  We have added many new animals and even a surprise new family member.  Another beautiful baby boy decided to join our family last September and what an interesting pregnancy it was on the farm. When we found out that I was pregnant we had already added ducks and many more rabbits. I had even been breeding some of the rabbits and selling them to feed stores or on the Internet. In fact just before I found out that I was pregnant I took the three boys on what I called an "adventure" to acquire a new humongous rabbit hutch. I had to rent a pull behind trailer from Uhaul and drive an hour and a half  through Denver. The hutch is about 10 feet long and 6 feet tall. It fits 6 rabbits comfortably and could fit more. I thought it was my dream hutch and I was willing to make the sacrifice to go get it. We did it, the boys were great on the boring drive through the city and I got it back to the house. we pulled into the driveway with my new claim and Dylan, my oldest, said, "Now how do we get it off the trailer?" Ummm...wait until daddy gets home!
Ben came home and saw that thing and just got one of his looks which means, "that woman is crazy...what does she have now?" The trailer had to be returned to Uhaul soon so I was recruited to carry the other end of this beast. I will tell you now...since everything turned out ok...I had a feeling I was pregnant at the time and wondered if carrying this thing was ok. Ben was not privy to my secret wonderings so he just harassed me to lift more...."Are you lifting at all?" he would ask.  Of course I wanted it in the most remote spot on the entire property so we pushed and pulled and probably swore and managed to get it into place. It was lovely and the breeding began.
The first attempts were surprisingly unsuccessful. I planned to have easter bunnies available in the spring so I bred three rabbits exactly as I had read in all my books and waited the 31-34 days gestation. The boys and I would check every day, well actually several times a day and none of them had any babies. Rabbits not getting pregnant? It seemed impossible. Why the expression "multiply like rabbits"? I decided it was the cold weather and waited until the spring to rebreed them. This time we were much more successful and soon had 15 new bunnies. One of our rabbits, Gracie had 11 babies, while the smaller breed each had two babies that lived. Since rabbits only have 8 nipples for nursing I stole three of Gracie's babies and gave them to another mama. She cared for them like a pro even though it was her first litter. The bunnies were growing and being as adorable as baby bunnies could be and then came time to sell them. I listed them on the internet and called the feed stores...everyone just said "maybe." Maybe?  What would I do with 15 extra rabbits? It was so difficult to find homes for these bunnies and my belly was quickly getting ginormous so when a person emailed me asking how many rabbits he could get for $20 I told him to come over and we'll see. I was so tired of the extra work that I sold almost all my females, any males we weren't impressed with and any babies that were left.
The young hippie who came to pick them up didn't seem to know much about rabbits, but we were desperate so we let him have them. He had a couple of cardboard boxes and just put them all in there together. I mentioned the whole concept of housing the males away from the females for obvious reasons and he said he was "cool" with babies....yeah good luck with that!
A few months later Ben had to go out of town for the weekend for reasons which I can't even remember now. All that I do know is that I was pregnant and in charge of the whole farm and three children on my own. I remember the first morning of this weekend rather vivdly. Somehow we all slept and I got the boys breakfast, a task generally done by Ben, and then I showered and got dressed for the day. Then I remembered that I was in charge of the animals and garden. So I slipped on my flip flops and headed out to the chicken coop. I opened the coop door with a huge scoop of food and one of them flew at me and bit my leg at which point I jumped and got chicken poop all over my pants. I decided to let it slide and continued to attempt to feed them when two more pecked at my feet. Oh, I had red toenail polish on and chickens are drawn to the color red so I closed the coop door and ran inside to get on my boots. I came back out and opened the gate to let the chickens out and then headed for the garden where I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. I ran from them screaming and decided the garden would survive just fine today. The last stop was the alpacas. I scooped up their supplement and did my best to balance two flakes of hay on my big belly then headed in to feed them. I got halfway through the door when one of the pregnant mamas looked at me and threatened to spit at me for being late with the food. I was teetering on the edge by this point so I think I yelled at her.. something about the fact that I was pregnant too and that she should just leave me alone(although probably not in words as peaceful as that). Anyhow she was not having it! I attempted to put the hay in the feeder and that mama looked straight at me and spit in my face! Alpacas have a chambered stomach like cows and chew a cud. Do you have any idea how bad previously chewed and spit out hay smells?? That was it for me. I stormed out of the barn, slammed the door shut behind me and tromped into the house peeling clothes off as I entered. I told the boys I would be out in a little bit and got back in the shower. A nice warm shower always changes my perspective on life.