Standard Rex Rabbits

I have two new rabbits. I don't 'need' two new rabbits but that's besides the point. They are both young does about 3 months old. I had to have these two rabbits because they are Standard Rex and have just amazing fur. You can't really tell in the picture but the fur is the softest soft, the plushest plush, the velvetyest velvet and is beyond thick. Their fur is that way because their guard hairs are very fine, straight and the same length as the under hairs. If I ever get into tanning the hides, Rexes make the best pelts. While Mini Rexes abound, the Standard Rex are hard to find. In fact, I got these two from New Brunswick. The Standards are considered a good meat rabbit. They weigh about 7 pounds, like the Creme D'Agents I have. Most meat rabbits are bigger, but I like this size, still enough for a meal and easier to pick up.

The one on the left is a chocolate otter colour. She's a dark brown with a triangle of light brown on her neck just behind her ears. It also looks like she is wearing light brown eye liner. Her tummy is light brown going to white at the center. The other one's colour is Lilac. They're both considered solid colour rabbits. Rexes do come in 'broken' colours which simply means they're white with spots that can be black, brown or whatever. I like the solid colours better, I think.

They are in an isolation cage right now, just as a precaution. The barn were they came from was immaculately clean and it's obvious these rabbits were well taken care off. Other than "This One" and "That One", they still have no names. I was thinking of using names from old rock ballads like Ruby Tuesday and Maggie May. That way, if I ever do get a buck, I could call him Rebel, Rebel. But these names don't suit these rabbits at all; old rocker types they ain't. And the two girls are from different lines so they need to have different theme names. I'm kind of leaning towards calling the brown otter after a tree. She's dark and earthy and has a presence of calm sturdiness. The lilac one is a lighter in colour and personality so I'm thinking either moon names or mist names.

So I'm up to eight permanent rabbits, a far cry from the four I started with. That's it, no more rabbits, none. Doesn't matter what breed they are (Harlequins and Chinchillas would be nice), how cute they are or how perfect they would be. No. More. Rabbits... probably.

Earl Was a Fizzle

A little rain, a little wind, I've seen worse. And that's fine by me. I'd rather be over-prepared than under-prepared. From what the forecasters say, Earl moved eastward so we were spared the worse.

Waiting for Earl

For about a week now there's been a lot of talk and reports about Hurricane Earl. It's been tracked meticulously by weather and news stations constantly. As the week and the hurricane progressed so has the warnings. It is actually predicted that good ol' Earl has a fifty-fifty chance of hitting Nova Scotia as a category 1 tomorrow, but that might change. It seems to change on an hourly basis. I tend to look at weather reports with askance. In my opinion, they're wrong more than they are right. And my neighbour thinks they're making more out of this than there really is. He's 86 and he's seen more weather than these young hot-shots on the tube with their images and computers and cool colour mapping of Earl. But you never know. I learned my lesson about that being on the island less than a month with a blizzard I didn't really take seriously.

In the time I've been here, I've seen remnants of tropical storms and they can be very destructive but they will likely pale beside an hurricane, no matter what category it is. So I'm going to hope for the best and prepare for the worse. As I do so, a little niggling worry rattles around in my heart. I can clear the veranda of loose items - needed to be done anyhow. Don can make sure the generator is gassed up in in top working order. I can take in all my gardening tools and make sure the tomato teepees are sturdy and anchored well. I can take a good look around the chicken coop and make sure the windows are in tonight and that the lights are working. I'll do head count and re-do it just to be on the safe side, I'll make sure the Coop Cat is in. I can make sure there's lots of food and water - it's harvest season, we have oodles of food. But there are some things I cannot protect, there's only so much one can do. The corn and my beloved trees are on their own. I'm glad we topped the trees earlier this summer, that should help them stay resolute against winds that are predicted to top 120 k/h.

Hopefully it won't be as bad as they say but if it is at least I won't be looking for my wheelbarrow in the next county when it's done. Be safe, my neighbours, my trees, chickens and garden.

Basil Garlic Pickled Green Beans

Well, the beans are done! I have pulled the plants and the freezer has bags and bags of green and yellow beans. So I decided to make Basil Garlic Pickled Green Beans. It might sound less than appetizing but they do taste wonderful and the beans stay crunchy. I hate mushy pickles of any sort.

It's a very simple recipe but like most pickles, it is time consuming. I need about 25 beans per jar, 2 - 3 garlic cloves, basil leaves and peppercorns. The peppercorns are quick, open the jar, pour 'em out. Everything else needs to be picked, washed, chopped and/or peeled. The brine is simple and fast. The recipe says not to use softened water so I always buy a jug of water to make the pickled beans. I'm not crazy about bottled water but buying one jug once a year is something I can live with. I have tried to find out why I can't use softened water but can't find any info on it.

So I prepare the jars and put the flavours in the bottom. While I'm doing that, I get the water going in the canner and the water for the lids. It's taken me a couple of canning sessions to figure out when to get the water bath canner going. At first I started it way too late and was waiting forever for the water to boil while my jars sat on the counter. A propane stove would probably heat the water much faster, come to think of it. I do four jars at a time so the bottles stay hot.

After putting the garlic, basil and peppercorns in, I stuff 'em full of green beans. The beans need to be upright and cut to fit. I find it's easier to put the first half of the beans in with the jar on its side. After the jar is stuffed with beans, I pour the hot brine into the jars and put on the lids and rings. Then it's into the water canner for a bit.


Hot from the canner, I put them on a towel to cool completely. As the jars seal, I hear a satisfying 'pop'. If the lid is curved downward in the middle, the seal is good. Once they are cooled completely, I'll check the seal and store them. They need about four weeks for the flavours to blend and deepen. After that, it's great snack food with crackers and cheese or to serve with meals.

Baby Corn!!!

Wow, that was fast! The baby corn was planted in the middle - late June and some of it's ready now. They're a little bit bigger than I expected, certainly bigger than the ones in the can or frozen from the store. The seed package said to pick the ears when the corn silk turned brown. But I'm thinking if I want smaller corns, I shouldn't wait that long. They're tasty though and very easy to freeze.

I did find out that sometimes on regular corn stalks you can find one or two baby corn growing with the big ear of corn, just at the base. I have never seen that here but I wasn't looking for it, either. I will keep an eye out for when the regular corn is ready.

One thing I won't do again is transplant baby corn in with the regular corn. It's a bit of a challenge to figure out what is what. The baby corn stalks are just as tall and robust as the regular ones. I knew the baby corns for sure were the ones with the brown corn silk but that's not going to help much if I want to start picking it before it turns brown. I only transplanted the baby corns because the second seeding of regular corn was rather erratic and there were lots of empty spaces in the rows. The baby corn I had planted in front of the chick run to provide some shade for them was thick and over-crowded so I figured it'd be a good idea to move some. I've read corn doesn't do well when transplanted but this stuff did great.

I am going to save a few cobs for seeds. I hope they will sprout but they may not if this corn is hybrid and is unable to re-produce itself. For the time being, I'll just enjoy what I have!

Freezers, Pros and Cons

When we moved here, we brought with us a little, 4 foot long freezer. I am a 'sale' shopper so a freezer was handy for that. The previous owners of our house left a humongous freezer behind, one those ones where I'm pretty sure I can lie flat in (not that I would because I wouldn't want to give anybody any ideas around here). The freezer ran fine and came in handy when the garden started really producing. The nice thing about it is it's in the cold room and doesn't really turn on too much in the winter. Most people can't fill one freezer but last Autumn, both were jammed packed. Sometimes going down to get a roast was a foray that had me emptying half the freezer then leaning over head first, teetering on my toes and hoping I don't fall in. And if I did fall in, praying that the lid wouldn't slam shut on me as I lay unconsious having whacked my head on a frozen roast. Of course, if that did happen, it would be kind of poetic justice for the cow whose leg part I was looking for. So when Don mentioned that a fellow at work had a bunch of chicken stuff for sale and a freezer we went for a look. Ended up with all sorts of stuff, an incubator, a bunch of waterers and chick feeders and another four foot long freezer. What family needs three freezers!?!?! As it turns out, one who grows most of their own food and buys 1/2 an organic, pastured local cow twice a year. As well, feeds two large dogs a modified biologically appropriate raw food diet (and yes, I am aware that the acronym for that is B.A.R.F.)

But it's making me think. Three freezers, even though they don't run all the time are still consuming energy. And then there's all that plastic. Freezer bags are re-usable and I do tend to use other plastic bags as well. But I wonder just how environmentally sound all that plastic is. I probably wouldn't have given this a thought before moving here but the lifestyle does make one very environmentally conscious. And that awareness leads to one small change after another until I want to actually figure out a better way than having freezers multiplying like rabbits, so to speak.

I have a water bath canner so I do can tomatoes and pickles. I have looked into getting a pressure canner so I can do veggies too. The jars are re-usable and so are the rings. The lids can't be re-used and there's that pesky BPA thing with them too. But apparently there are solutions to that on the horizon from what I read. In any case, it's probably better than all the plastic and electricity 3 freezers need. But every pressure canner I looked at says do not use it on a glass top stove and guess what I have? I use my pressure cooker on the glass top with no problem but I guess it's different for canners. I think what I might start looking for is a used propane stove. Something I could set up in the fall on a temporary basis just to can. It's something I can think about and look through the classifieds, Used PEI, Kijiji... and may-be I can find a better way.

The Butterfly Garden Changes Once Again

This has been a year for weird things around here. No fireflies but lots of mosquitoes; carrots won't grow but potato plants are popping up from peelings, etc. And then there is the butterfly garden which has it's own weirdness going on.
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I planted lavender in the garden the year it was made. While I worried it wouldn't come back, every spring it did! Over the last five years I lost only one plant out of the six. Last winter was very mild in comparison to others so I didn't really worry about the lavender. I mean if it could make it through the harsh winters, it should be fine, right? Wrong. Not one plant re-newed itself this spring. Weird.

The butterfly garden is a changing thing, that's one of the things I like about it. The only real constant in it is the old wooden wagon wheel I found on the property when we moved in. It has changed places in the garden but in the garden it remains, may-be a little more worn, a couple more missing spokes and few more loose ones but it's still there, hearkening back to days long since past. The paths are completely gone now. The little white rocks buried under new compost and soil. The back of the garden where I once placed rocks and tree logs for the butterflies to rest and sun on are totally overgrown by vegetation now. I transplanted all the perennials to the back of the garden to make it a little bit maintenance free. Lambs ear, sage, lovage, asterbees, bee balm, comfrey and common lilac all are doing well under the shade of the crabapple and snowball trees.

In the front part, which is much sunnier, only the lupins are perennials. I've had different annuals over the years. I tried something different this year. I remember my dear Mom (Eileen) collecting cosmos seeds and successfully planting them the next year. So last fall, I collected cosmo seeds and the seeds from the brown and white daisys that spring up in different places around here. This spring I planted them in the butterfly garden along with the calendula seeds. Before I planted the seeds, I dotted the garden with the stepping stones an other whimsy objects collected over the years via Christmas and Mother's Day gifts. I thought the mix of plants and the whimsical would look really nice. I imagined a sea of tall, slender plants swaying gently in the winds and cresting with white, gold, pink and purple. Only the sturdy, stubby Calendula plants came up. Weird.

I stopped re-filling the humming bird feeder I had because I couldn't do it regularly and I know the sugar/water mixture will go mouldy and that's not good for hummingbirds. I originally put the feeder up because I noticed one or two hummingbirds last year. This year, with no feeder to attract them, I have bunches of them hanging around. Weird.

I'm not sure these things are all that weird, really. I'm pretty sure if I researched and poked around a bit I could find reasonable explanations for all these things. But things are very busy around here now so the "Gee, it's been a weird year around here." will have suffice for a while longer. At least next winter, when everything huddles and closes in on itself, I'll have time to go through my books and find out what I did wrong. Unless, of course, we have a weird winter that keeps me hopping.