Little Orphaned Kits

My dear Ceilidh died very suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday. I have no idea why. She seemed to be in perfect health. She did have a gummy eye that I had treated with chamomile tea, it cleared up completely until about a week ago. Ceilidh was a Californian and I had her for a couple of years. She was a bit on the standoffish side, had more important things to do that letting me rub her head. But she was an excellent mom, having many litters and raising them successfully. I'll miss Ceilidh, she was snobby but she was a delight to watch in 'mom' mode.
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When Ceilidh died, she left 5 thirteen day old kits. She obviously was taking great care of them, they're all huge, round, alert and happy. Their eyes are open and they are nibbling on hay, oats and pellets but they are too young to survive without some kind of version of mother's milk. So I'm hand feeding them. Hand feeding kits usually has a very high mortality rate. I'm hoping because they're not newborns that their survival rate is much higher. I'm using a homemade formula consisting of whole milk, egg yolk and sulfured molasses. I've used it before and it seems to be nourishing. Mind you, I've never raised kits on this formula, just hand fed a couple for a day or two until they could be re-united with their mom and siblings. The biggest thing about hand feeding kits is trying not to drown the poor little things when syringing formula into their teeny, tiny little mouths. It's a drop-by-drop process right now but I'm hoping they'll clue in that the hard plastic thing has yummy food in it, I'm hoping that will make it easier.

Saving Tomato Seeds

I was quite pleased with the results of my cold frame experiment this year. I've decided to save some tomato seeds the 'right' way in lieu of just throwing all the seeds and skins in a cold frame and hope for the best. It worked but the tomatoes did start late and there was too many of them. So I'm going to be more organized for next year.

Saving tomato seeds is a little bit more complicated than just grabbing the seeds and drying them out. There's a whole process to them. Selecting the tomatoes that are ripe to the point of spoiling is what most instructions recommend. I picked one beefsteak, two romas and a heritage tomato. I know for a fact the heritage tomato is one of the plants that sprung up in my cold frame because I didn't buy heritage tomatoes last year. So if I get any plants from this tomato it will be second generation DaM Farm tomatoes. Tomatoes are self pollinating and don't usually cross-pollinate so, unlike pumpkins for example, it's rare to get cross species.

The second step is to cut the tomato sideways or through its 'equator'. I would imagine the point is to have easy access to the seeds. It worked well for the beefsteak and heritage tomatoes. I found the romas, with their long oval shape, were better if I sliced them lengthwise, I got much better access to the seeds. I used a spoon to get the seeds out. After fooling a round for a bit several different spoons, I finally found one that worked the best with both less mess and general grossness. Over-ripe, squishy tomatoes definitely have an "ew" factor. The type of spoon is what I call a grapefruit spoon used to scoop out the insides of grapefruit. The end is not a point but straight across and while not sharp, it's not a blunted as a regular spoon. It does a really good job on getting the seeds stuck on the side of the tomato walls.

Once the tomato seeds have been collected, I put them each in their own labeled glass and added a couple of tablespoons of water. Then I covered the glass with plastic wrap and poked a hole in the wrap. This where is gets all scientific. The reason for doing this is so the seeds can ferment. It gets rid of germs and disease that might be in the seeds. The hole in the wrap provides air exchange which is necessary for the whole process. It's recommended to place the containers either in a sunny window or on top of the fridge. I chose the fridge, mid-October in PEI means sunny windows are not a consistent thing. Besides, being on top of the fridge means, I see them all the time and won't forget to stir them daily which is also part of the process.

Then I wait 3 days letting the tomatoes ferment. Apparently knowing the seeds are ready is easy, you just wait for a disgusting, scummy, smelly, slimy layer form on the top of the water. It also attracts those horrible little fruit fly things and haunt me this time of year. So here they are, all scummed up and ready for the next step.

Now I skim off as much scum as I can and pour the contents into a small strainer, the kind you'd use for herbs or tea, if you didn't have a tea-ball. Then I rinsed the seeds under running water until all the little half rotted pulp bits and what not is gone. I put them on coffee filters to air out. After a couple of days, I put the seeds directly on the plate since they were all sticking to the coffee filters. Apparently it takes about a week for them to completely dry, when that happens,I'll bag and tag 'em. And next spring, I'll see if I did dry them right or not.