[Ag-eq] The BlanchRanch Bulletin

[Jewel]

The BlanchRanch Bulletin for March 2014.
Peter Rabbit got away again:  twice I fear, but was caught in the same garden that he always went to 
that was owned by Steven and Erin Grey.  I told them that they should change their name to McGregor.
My readers may be familiar with Beatrix Potter's "Tales of Peter Rabbit" and his penchant for 
visiting Mr. McGregor's garden.
I hope that, touching wood, I have put an end to Peter's Houdini tricks as he was making me, in my 
eyes if not in those of others, look like a proper Charlie, and when one can be made to look like a 
"proper Charlie" by a rabbit, things cannot get much worse!
Even though I have a, relatively, large property stocked with farm animals, I am in a residential 
area so there is no food supply for varmints such as weasels, and, around here, at least,  we don't 
have any raptors which could threaten my rabbits, so, during the day, they are tethered out on the 
grass.
Up until last night, they, Peter Rabbit and Bugzee Malone,  were coupled together having the end of 
a large dog show slip collar clipped to one bunny collar and ditto at the other end with a 3 metre 
chain clipped to the middle of the coupler [I hope that you can follow me![.
However, I decided to give them a bit more independent movement by joining 2 long slip collars 
together.
I was concerned as to whether they would get tangled in all the extra chain, but when I checked 
them, they were fine.
Have I  mentioned my hydroponic enterprise before?  I haven't!  well suffice it to say that it was a 
complete failure! I know that some people do have great success, but I, alack and alas, was not
one of them.
After 2 years of struggle, I didn't pick as little as 1 thing from it!
I will be in the very near future, replacing a row of sheds before they collapse of their own 
accord, and to this end, I am having to throw out things that are, #1:  beyond all possible use, or, 
#2 have not been used for, at least, the previous 20 years!
As I am the queen of recyclers, I stand back and visualise in my mind's eye almost everything that 
does not fit into the above 2 categories, and, sometimes, something that does,  and picture it in a 
fresh incarnation, and so it was with a  concrete pig trough:  [it is the trough that is concrete, 
not the pigs that dined therefrom;  just in case there was some confusion in your minds]
I saw it full of luxuriant herbs, so there we have it, from a common pig trough to an upmarket herb 
garden!
At the back of the sheds that are to be replaced, is another  lean-to shed which, firstly, was the 
home of the pigs who fed from
the trough when they weren't out digging great holes in the paddocks, and after the pigs, it was a
chookhouse, and after the chooks it was an occasional dormitory for any goats or sheep who wished to
avail themselves of it.
I did not take out the bedding as it became soiled, but just threw fresh straw and hay on top.
Consequently, I had a thick floor covering consisting of:  rotted down straw and hay, soil that came
in on the animals' feet, and excrement from all of them:  [I don't think that I was ever "caught
short" when in there, but I would not stake the ranch on that!
Anyway, what I have been doing it to chop out all that accumulated bedding and put it through the
mulcher, along with any food scraps, such as orange skins that I could not give to Guideon in his 
evening
meal or the rabbits in theirs.
The resulting humus looks lovely, and with the addition of a handful of lime to a spreading should
grow some great vegetables.
One of the weeds/wild plants that grow on the BlanchRanch in profusion is puha which I was always
pulling out, but since having the bunnies, the pulling out is for them as they love it and will eat
overnight, several entire plants from flower tip  to, and including, the  root!