Camping Adventures

I have never ever in my life been on a canoe trip. I've also never been to Algonquin. I've paddled a few canoes around a few lakes, but I've never packed all my stuff into a backpack, and headed off for a back-country camping adventure.

The idea may have come up after a few drinks. "Let's take a camping trip this October!" My co-conspirator at that time (Jess) jumped on the camping bandwagon, and a camping trip was born. We recruited a few others - my dear friend Kelly, and Marine, our helper from France who is staying with us right now.

We hit the road all chipper and excited on Friday morning. We had a great drive up to the park, beautiful colours starting to show in the trees. There was loud music, and singing. (At least in our car there was.) We arrived at Canoe Lake in Algonquin mid afternoon, and pushed off into the water shortly after.

Truth be told, I had been feeling a little bit anxious all day. A little bit of nervousness, combined with a bit of a nagging anxiety in the pit of my stomach. But the canoe trip must go on, right? So away we went.

Smiling and ready to roll!

Doesn't look so windy from here, but trust me...

It was a sunny but windy afternoon, and we were paddling in some pretty decent winds. After maybe 30-40 minutes of paddling (time had no meaning) we decided to "pull over" at a dock (at Cook Island, near as I can figure?) to catch our breath and gather our strength. (The hardcore paddlers are laughing right now, that we had to pull over that soon!) The paddle ahead crossing the second half of canoe lake was looking to be a doozy, with some pretty high winds and waves up ahead.

We had a good rest and headed back out. Luckily, we were only about 200 meters away from the dock, headed back across Canoe Lake, when we got into trouble. Our boat got turned into the wind and we were having trouble controlling it. One second we were thinking "holy shit, this is bad" and the next instant we were in the water, along with our upside down boat and all our gear.

The first thing I did when we hit the water was to flip the boat back over. Fortunately I managed to get it over, and scoop up all our gear with it, because only a minimal amount of it was actually attached to the boat. We managed to only lose a pair of sunglasses off my head, and a pair of paddling gloves, and some *ahem* other paraphernalia.  Miraculously, that was all we lost!  With a righted boat, we started to kick our way back to shore, dragging a very full boat of water along with us.  At the best of times this would be difficult. It's extra doubly dumb when you're wearing rubber boots!! 

We're "kicking" back, when out of nowhere appeared some dude, who we dubbed "Survivor Man."  He threw us a rope and somehow paddled himself and his boat AND our boat and us back to the shore, where he helped us get it and all of our drenched gear out of the water. He flipped the boat to empty all of the water out of it, and then disappeared into the lake again, after making sure we were all ok. Like some sorta loch-nessy Superhero.

By this time, Jess and Marine had turned around to come back to us.  We all gathered on the dock. As you may guess, the lake is a little less than temperate this time of year. I wasn't cold until I got OUT of the water and stood around in wet clothes. And then I was cold. Like mothertrucking cold. And wet.


Yup, Kelly and I were wet...about as wet as someone could be. EVERYTHING was soaked. None of our stuff was in wetbags (a mistake I'll never make again!) save for my sleeping bag, and everything was saturated to the core. We managed to change out of some of our wet things into extra stuff that Jess had, and we agreed that our canoe trip was over, at least for the night. We'd head back towards Huntsville, find a place to sleep and dry out for the night, and try again in the morning.

See you tomorrow, Canoe Lake

Back on dry land, wearing all of Jessica's (slightly too small clothes)

A few hours later, after stopping at about a dozen hotels, and calling another dozen, we were starting to feel pretty down. Not a room in sight anywhere (tourist season is still in full swing in the area, thanks to the fall colours) and we were cold, still wet, and hungry. Hangry. We decided to pull over into an empty parking lot and dig into our food barrel. Roadside quiche and pepperettes - dinner of champions! On a whim, I widened the search feature on my phone and I made one more phone call to a little resort about 20 minutes south of Huntsville, and all of a sudden, we had a place to sleep for the night. They had two cabins available - one with a hot tub, one without.  In my damp cranky state, no longer caring about the cost ($300 for a room for the night!) I chose hot tub. Best decision I made all day! 

Our Safe Haven for the night.

So Beauview Resort, on Portage Road, 20 minutes south of Huntsville - I can't recommend them highly enough! Our hosts (Gord and Nancy) went above and beyond for us - staying up late to run all of our sopping wet clothes through a spin cycle and then through the dryer, and delivering baskets of warm dry clothes to us. Like a little angel from heaven! ;) The cabin was warm and cozy with a roaring (propane) fire, three beds, and a living room. We unpacked EVERY. THING. All wet. From the clothes to the library books, to my new journal (sniff!) and everything in between. The only thing of mine that stayed dry was my phone (in a wetbag) and my rabbit fur that I brought to sit on.  Ha, our ancestors were onto something! And then we went about getting warm.

We spent a good two hours (or more?) in the hot tub, warming back up, and quickly working our way through all the booze we brought! But all in all it was a pretty amazing end to the day.

In the morning, after the perfect breakfast of greasy sausages and potatoes, we decided to head back towards Algonquin (after a trip into town for more booze and new sunglasses) and see if we could find a place to camp for the night, no canoeing involved!

About 5 kilometers before the park gate, traffic slowed to a crawl. We spent about 40 minutes in ridiculously slow traffic, only to find that it was just a backup of folks trying to get into the main park office to get day permits. What a zoo!!  When we finally got past the park gate we were thrilled, since we thought maybe this backup lasted for a while. Back up to speed and only a few kilometers from Canoe lake again, where we were going to stop to return some towels that some other kindly strangers had lent us, and see about a site for the night.

That's when the second tragedy struck. I still can't believe it happened, and I'm still flabbergasted that no one got hurt. It all happened in an instant - there was a few cracking noises, large "whoosh" sound, and all of a sudden our canoe was on the highway behind us, instead of on top of the car where it was supposed to be. The cross brace that the straps were attached to, that was anchoring the canoe to the car, had given way and come right off the canoe.  The wind grabbed the canoe from the front, flipped it end over end, it landed on the highway, rolled once, and landed on the shoulder of the road. A flipping miracle that no one was close behind us.

We all agreed right then and there that our camping trip was done. Over. The universe was trying to tell us that it was time to go home. Except we had one problem...the anchor point to attach the canoe to the front of the car was lying on the side of the highway, with two broken straps attached to it.

Bloody hell.

Thank god, again, for good samaritans. This time, an older couple, Art and his wife, pulled over to help us re-attach the canoe to the car. We were down a few straps, but we had a ton of yellow rope that we tied around the belly of the canoe. Marine managed to gather all the missing pieces of the canoe - the busted gunnels from both sides, the cross brace, the foam blocks, everything. We got the canoe safely attached to the car and turned around to head (slowly) home.

Art, our roadside guardian angel

Back at home with Simon's poor canoe...we found out afterwards that this happened to the other end of the canoe as well - screws from the gunnels pulled right though the Kevlar.

Sunroof open, hanging onto the canoe for dear life, and still smiling!

We found out when we got home yesterday that there was a fatal accident just past where we lost the canoe, shortly after we went through (we saw the ambulances zoom by when we stopped for a little lunch on our way home)  I'd like to think that maybe our canoe tragedy saved us from something more serious. Let's go with that.

I spent the day yesterday recovering. A little bit worse for wear, but I slowly came back to life as the day wore on. A walk in the Mingay helped recover some of my spirits.

I think we'll wait until next year to try this again (but try again I will.)

Lessons learned:
-Wetbags are worth the investment. Not just for your phone...for your everything!
-The water in Algonquin is not as cold as I thought it might be at this time of year....but I still wouldn't recommend it.
-Rubber boots suck for swimming in.
-$300 is MORE THAN worth it for a dry warm room with a hot tub.
-Kindness from strangers is some of the best sort of kindness.
-A strap around the belly of a canoe is ALWAYS a good idea, no matter what anyone says.
-Kawartha Dairy Mocha Madness Ice Cream has GLUTEN in it (is nothing sacred??)
-A mickey of Maple Whiskey is NOT enough for a canoe trip, next time bring the whole bottle.
-The trip is less about the destination and more about the journey, and adventure comes in all kinds of forms.
-My friends are awesome (but I already knew that!)

Thanks for the adventures, friends, and Algonquin Park. I'll be back...I'll conquer you yet!!

Please feel free (if you dare) to sign up for next year's trip below!  ;) 

Choice

I spent the day yesterday glaring and making angry noises at my computer, and all the silly people on Facebook. 

Hardly productive.

Our area of the world has been in a bit of a deep freeze for the past few weeks.  January has been c-c-c-cold.  February is shaping up to be not much different.  We're in the middle of a "good old fashioned winter" which is to say lots of snow, lots of cold, lots of wind.  Which, around here, results in lots of road closures, lots of cancelled buses and closed schools.  Some people have been stuck in their houses for close to a week now, as closed roads keep them from going anywhere.  People are running out of groceries, small towns are running out of gas, and tempers are running high.

Yesterday was particularly bad in Dufferin - everything looked good in the morning, good enough to send the kiddies to school, but then one by one the roads started closing. White-outs everywhere, and then at 1pm the county declared a state of emergency, closed the schools, cancelled the afternoon buses, and all of a sudden there were hundreds of kids stranded at their schools.  Chaos ensued.

(Just a note - Dufferin is the county that we moved AWAY FROM 18 months ago, not the one that we currently live in.  However, we still live very close to the border of the county, so it's road closures tend to affect us, although not nearly in the way that they used to.)

Many parents spent the day griping about the decisions the school board had made to send the kids to school. Run the buses, keep the schools open, keep exams running in highschools. "It's not safe!" they all shouted.  "Call the media, tell them how the board is risking the safety of our kids!"  "Our kids have to write exams, they have no choice but to go to school."

And that's when I started making my angry noises at the screen.

Here's the thing - you, I, whoever, we ALWAYS have a choice.


I tried to explain this to some people yesterday, and it fell on deaf ears.

If you don't feel that it's safe to put your kids on the bus, despite what the school boards say, then DON'T DO IT.  Your choice.  Not the school board, not the school, YOU.  You even have a choice to write exams or not.  If you feel like your children are being asked to RISK THEIR LIVES to go write an exam, then you need to decide what is more important - their life, or their exam. You could drive them, or, if they miss it they could potentially write it later, take their mark without their exam, or worst case, retake the course. All of these things are better options than potentially getting killed on your way to school on treacherous roads. It is YOUR choice.

This is a lesson for yesterday, and ultimately, for life. 

I think too many people sit around and blame others for what is happening in their lives.  They blame chance, or circumstance, and wallow in their lives, thinking there is no way to change things.

Untrue.  There is always a way.  We always have a choice to make a positive change.  Sometimes you have to get creative, go way out of your comfort zone, ask for help.  But there is always a choice to be made.

Sometimes, granted, we can not control the things that happen to us.  We can't control the weather, accidents happen, people die suddenly, some things are out of our control.  But we CAN control how we react to those things. We can wallow in them, or choose to take a step in a different direction.

There is no such thing as "I have no choice."  You ALWAYS have one.  You are the maker of your own destiny.  The trailblazer of your own path. The person in charge of YOUR life is YOU.

And the person in charge of my life is me. Every choice that I have made, and then we as a family has made has brought us to where we are.  IT IS NO ACCIDENT that we live in the greatest place in the world (in our mind, anyway) and are stupidly happy.  We made it so.

So if you're unhappy with some facet of your life?

Change it.

YES, you can. 

Find the thing that sings to your soul, and then make a move towards it.

Even if it is a teeny tiny move.  Its STILL a move. A step in the right direction.

Somedays it will feel like you've hardly moved at all.  Some days you may move backwards. But tomorrow is a new day, and another chance to move forward again.

Some days you win, some days you learn.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

YOU, and only you can make the choice.

The choice to be happy lies in YOUR hands.

So go, be happy!



(And thanks to Marianne, who bugged me about blogging again.  Blogging makes me happy!  xoxox) 

Unplugged

This weekend, we tried a little something new on Sunday. We put away the phones, the ipads, the computers, and spent the day 100% unplugged.

It was so needed.

And it was SO awesome!

We played with each other. Read books, made and drank copious amounts of tea. Did puzzles, played with lego, drew, dreamed, and talked to each other. Like really talked.

(Some of us even went back to bed when "we" realized there was no morning show to be had!)

We invited some friends for dinner, and then spent the afternoon tidying up the house.  Finishing off the weekend with a delicious meal with friends, and a clean house, full of love for each other was perfect. 

We'll do it again, no doubt.

A year of Corben

One photo a month, for one year. (Except for October...there's two, I couldn't pick.)  All Corben, all the time. 

Happy Birthday dude!

(And sorry about the watermarks, but I wasn't about to re-upload them all!)

January 2013

February 2013

March 2013

April 2013

May 2013

June 2013

July 2013

August 2013

September  2013

October 2013

Annnd October again

November 2013

December 2013

Happy Birthday, to the coolest, awesomest kid I know.

Adventures in Roadkill

Our valley runs along side a river.  Steep sloping hills up one side, and the other, and a river that rushes its way noisily through the middle of it.  And the road, our road, that follows the river, with thick bush abutting the road for most of the trek.

On Monday morning, as Steve was driving home from dropping Corben off at daycare, a deer on her way from one place to another bound out of those bushes at a most unfortunate time, and met with the front bumper of Steve's car, sending her flying up and over the car and landing in the ditch beside the road.

When Steve stopped the car, and got out to check on the car and the deer, she was lying in the ditch, still alive, but clearly injured as she wasn't able to move. Since deer that are shot often bolt, and run for miles on the adrenaline of their injuries, it was clearly bad.

He quickly came home to try and find a friend (with a gun) to put this poor thing out of her misery.  A few phone calls later and we discovered that we couldn't actually shoot the deer, we needed to call the OPP to do it. (Otherwise any schmuck with a gun, outside hunting season, could claim to just be "putting the deer out of it's misery" for one excuse or another. It would be considered poaching if they were caught.)

To make a long story short, about a half hour later Steve came home, our friend Dan following behind him with an expired deer in the back of his truck.

Despite her unfortunate, untimely end, we weren't about to let her go to waste.

So all of a sudden we had a deer in our back yard that needed to be dealt with.  Gutted and hung. And me?  I've processed one rabbit in my life. One. But one more phone call and we had an experienced hunter in our back yard, showing us the ins and outs of gutting a deer.

Hardly the Monday morning any of us had anticipated.

A short time later, we had a gutted deer hanging in our yard.

On Friday night, with an impeding snow storm approaching, it was time to get the deer down from her perch, and deal with processing her.

Now, we live in an incredible community.  When we needed to haul a dead deer from the side of the road, and gut it, there were a half a dozen people that we could have called to help us, and they would have come. At the same time, if you've got a deer hanging in your yard, and you want to keep it for your freezer, then the mentality is you best get to work figuring out how to take care of that. There are lots of folks here happy to provide guidance and even a helping hand, but nobody is going to do it FOR you.  Put on your big girl Carharts, and do it yourself.

The job of butchering in this family seems to have fallen to me.

And because we wanted to keep the deer, not to mention the pelt, on Friday night I skinned and quartered* a deer, in our neighbour Kyle's garage (of course) for the first, but likely not last time.  (*I'm not sure why the call it quartering, because it's more like 6 pieces, but maybe that's too much math.)

It was seriously cool.

Luckily for me, this "road kill" deer was a good practice deer. Her pelvis was so completely shattered that the meat on the inside was pretty much a write off, so it was pretty hard for me to screw it up.

But I did it. And it was awesome. It's so wonderfully cool to see the inside workings of such an amazing creature.  How bone comes together, and how muscles run along the body.  Learning about cuts of meat and where they come from and why some are better than others. Not to mention walking away with a decent sized pelt.

Now, scraping and tanning the pelt is an adventure all of it's own, and a shitpile of work, a pile that I've decided to put off until the spring.  In the meantime the hide is rolled and bagged and frozen until I can give up a weekend to just sit and scrape. I'm looking forward to that too, it's going to take a ton of work and patience, but I have dreams of ditching giving the kids to the loving arms of their grandparents for the weekend, and sitting beside a smouldering fire for three days; cooking shit on the fire, drinking wine, and sinking my teeth into this beautiful piece of fur. (It's good to have a dream.)

So now, with a self-satisfied pat on the back, I can say that I know how to gut, skin, and quarter a deer. Put that shit on my resume, shall I? Thanks to my excellent teacher, Neighbour Jim, who only skinned his first deer winter.  But then he skinned his second.  And third.  Gifts from the Valley.

Who knew I, we, any of us was such a redneck?

And to the Mama deer, who was in such an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time, we are grateful for her - the lessons she brings, and the meat, and the fur, and we promise we won't let any of them go to waste. 

Self sufficiency. Living off the land.  Organic, free range venison at it's finest. These are all very, very good things that I've been dreaming of for a while.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

xoxox

Life Lessons from a baby bunny

Its a week after our Mama rabbit gave us our first litter.  How excited I was to see that first litter arrive, I felt like I had given birth to those little kits!  My heart swelled with excitement at the newborn life, and the miracle of it all. (And the expediency...rabbits are only pregnant for about 31 days!)  And TEN babies!  Oh how my chest ached just at the thought of it, of nursing ten babies until they were ready to wean (which, again with the expediency, is a mere 6 weeks later.)

But our Mama rabbit never nursed those babies. Her mothering instinct never kicked in.  We've learned that this is very common for first time mother rabbits.  But that doesn't make it any easier.

We were down to two little fighting babies for a while there. Oh how I tried to keep those two little fighters alive. Went so far as to snuggle them down my shirt (kangaroo care...for bunnies) and feed them kitten formula. 

One week those little guys fought to hang on.  And I fought with them, for them.  On Tuesday night, I went out to find our lone bunny Vincent (his brother died earlier that day) out of his nest box, and cold on the wire.  I brought him inside, cold and limp, with blood on his paws and back from where he got stuck on the wire.  I brought him in to cry over his little body, shaken in my defeat, feeling like I and not the Mama rabbit had failed at her job.  But then slowly, as I held him in my hands, he started to occasionally twitch.  And then a little more.  I dropped everything I had planned for that night and sat in my rocking chair, with a heating pad and a syringe full of kitten milk replacement, with a baby rabbit down my shirt, doing everything that I could to keep him alive and give him a shot at a decent life.

Of course, as some pointed out, it's ironic to work so hard to save something that I am eventually going to kill.  But the point is, that in the mean time, this little bunny - a living creature - deserved the best life that he can possibly have. We are all going to die in the end; me, you, our kids, our pets, the deer in the bushes, the cows in the field.  We all have a right to the best possible life we can live in that time frame between our first breath and our last.  As humans, it is us that have the choice of how we achieve that best possible life.  As for these animals, we've taken on the responsibility for them. We actually give a shit about their quality of life, despite the fact that some day, they will be food.

A friend wrote this to me, it made me feel really, really good about our efforts.  She said "I'm so sad. Lovely to see your caring and effort - challenging the myth that people don't care about the animals they eat. Obviously you cared."

And I did.  Likely even too much.  It sure would have been hard if that bunny had lived, to some day put him on the table after all that effort.  So, lesson learned.  Nature is in charge here, not me.

What a lovely lesson to take away from all this - that nature and the universe is in charge.  That we need to have trust.  That we need to let go of fear.  And I love that feeling that we get when we drop everything that we were going to do, because something more important came along - it always amazes me how our priorities can shift in the face of trouble or crisis.  How the seemingly huge things that you were sweating over hours ago seem suddenly meaningless and insignificant.  It also proves to me what great things we can accomplish if we (ok, I) focus and make something a priority (even those this time around the end result wasn't in my favour.  I sure did learn though, so much.)

Yes, they were just a litter of 10 tiny bunnies, that lived only a short time.  But for me they were so much more than that.  They were a humbling lesson in the power of the universe, the importance of focus and dedication, and the enormous responsibility we've taken on to give a small heard of creatures a decent life. 

Better luck next time, Mama Rabbit.

Trials and Tribulations of raising Rabbits.

It's been a disappointing few days in the Rabbit Raising department here in the Valley.  On Thursday afternoon, I suspected the babies weren't being fed, but I really had no idea if that was true or not.  The kits were still pretty active, peeping like only kits can do (baby bunnies make cute little squeaky noises) and since they only usually get fed once a day, it was quite likely that I was being a paranoid first time rabbit mom.

But by Friday morning, when I found one of them barely alive, and the rest pretty chilly, we knew that things weren't going so well. 

First time Mama rabbits are pretty famous for screwing things up.  Never expect anything from a first litter, is what I've been told. They don't have the babies in the nest (in which case they die from cold) or they don't feed them.  Or they just plain eat them. 

Makes me feel not so bad for all the silly things that I did my first time around!

Yesterday afternoon, me and our new roomie Jess went about getting the kits to feed.  Feed from their Mama, who we picked up, snuggled on her back, and let the kits roam around her belly. We did the first go-round outside, and didn't have much luck getting any of them to do anything.  They were cold and listless and not interested in much.  I decided to leave the heating pad under their next box, so they could concentrate on just living, instead of having to stay warm too.

Later in the evening, we moved the whole operation inside, and gave a real college try to get the kits to feed. 

Three of them were too far gone, so we sadly gave up on them.

Four of them gave a go at eating, some a little harder than the others.

This morning we were down to two, which honestly, is two more than I thought there would be.

Oh, who would have thought that this would all be so very difficult!

It was late this evening (in the dark) when we got around to feeding them again.  We were thrilled to find two warm and active kits in the nest box!  Mama wasn't too interested in being caught for her daily ritual, but relaxed right into it when we got down to business.  The two kits scurried and rooted, and found their Mama's milk, and got down to filling their bellies, which they were quite successful at in the end!  We put two satiated kits back in their nest and will cross our fingers till morning.

One of the reasons we decided to raise rabbits was that it was purported to be SO easy.  SO easy, that is, when everything goes right.  But when things go wrong, it's not terribly easy at all.  Nor do I think it will be terribly easy when the time comes to send these little ones off to the freezer, after working so hard to save their lives.

However, its that working hard that makes me feel good about all this.  What sort of treatment do you think these kits and this mother may have had in a high-output operation?  Likely not what happened in the past 48 hours!  We're doing our best to give these animals the greatest shot we can at a decent life. Knowing that we gave them that make me ok with it all.  Makes me root for these little fighters just that little bit harder.

Go, bunny babies, go!

Passive Solar Greenhouse Design. (Or, How I spent my weekend.)

I've been dreaming of a greenhouse for years.  This year, with the addition of our furry friends, it got bumped to the top of the list so they would have a place to stay out of the cold this winter.  Bunny hut in winter, and as soon as it's time for the seedlings to go in, the bunny party goes back outside.  It'll also be a spot to store all those garden bits and pieces that, up until now, haven't had a place to live due to our lack of outdoor storage.  (No garage, shed, or covered porch to speak of.)

I scrounged up most of the material for this little project.  The windows are are recycled from here there and everywhere, and the wood siding came from an old fence that got demolished.  We're still on the hunt for some roofing, and likely a bit more wood for siding (please, universe, send some my way!) Grand total, $100 for 2 by 4, and $20 worth of screws.  The rest was salvaged, or we had on hand.  (I can't tell you how happy that makes me!)

The greenhouse isn't a traditional greenhouse - it's a passive solar design.  Most greenhouses are to effing hot to do anything with in the summer) and everything in them melts or is destroyed by the sun.  Not this one.  Designed (by Steve) for maximum light in the winter, and minimum light in the summer (it all has to do with roof angles and overhangs) and some cross-breeze action, we're hoping this beauty will be good to us all year round.

We also put a great counter on the south side.  Potting bench on top, wood storage underneath. Oh, and butchering table too...

In the spring there may be cedar shingles attached, or not.  There will be a roof of sorts before the snow flies.  And some form of white twinkly lights, to light up our fire pit.  On Thanksgiving weekend, we will put a match to all the scraps in the fire pit just in front of it, and christen it with a fire, and thank the universe for all the kind things it delivers us - windows, and wood, and food to eat, and fire to cook it over, and friends to share it with.

What more could you ask for? 

xoxo

On Forgiveness

Forgiveness can be a hard.  When you've been hurt, and all you can feel in your heart is anger and sadness, it can be an epic feat to push those feelings aside and find room for anything else.  However, getting through the day, even just one day, with those feelings occupying your heart is almost a harder feat than pushing them aside.  (In my opinion anyway.)  I don't have room in my heart, or in my life, for those feelings.  I've never made room for them in my life, and I won't start.  So we forgive, and we carry on, lighter in the knowing that our body and heart are once again a loving and wonderful place to be.  Forgiveness is not necessarily something that you do for another person.  You must do it for you, otherwise your life, your heart and soul will be the ones that suffer.

Go on, you'll feel better. SO MUCH better.

I do.

No word can describe.

Raising Meat Rabbits

If you follow me on instagram, or we're friends on Facebook (or in real life) you'll know that we have had a few new additions to our family.

This is Chester, our Buck.

 And Rosemary and Pepper, our Does. (Yes, rabbits are called Bucks and Does.)

These guys are a New Zealand White crossed with Flemish Giants.  This mix is a very popular cross to breed for meat rabbits. 

With our income being cut pretty much in half in the past year, since my decision to stay home more for the kids, we have been looking for ways to become more sustainable.  We've talked about raising chickens (and may still talk some more) but Steve is not keen on the idea.  (Plus, raising chickens for meat is really not that cost effective.) We have no room for cows, pigs, or lambs.  So rabbits was the answer.

I grew up eating rabbit meat, as our next door neighbour raised rabbits.  We would have rabbit at least twice a year, usually on Christmas and Easter (we used to make jokes about eating the Easter Bunny, and thought we were very clever!) Rabbit are one of the cheapest and easiest meats to raise.  Not only that, but rabbit meat is incredibly good for you. It's low in cholersterol, low in calories, low in saturated fats, high in protein, low in sodium, all white meat, and has 100% of the RDA for B12.

We made the decision rather quickly, found some rabbits, and boom, we're raising rabbits!

We've built one "rabbit tractor," which is a portable cage that moves around the backyard, fertilizing the ground and the soil that I plan to till up and turn into more veggie gardens next spring.  Steve will be building a second one for Chester this weekend, and we'll need to build one more for when the does are pregnant so we can separate them and they can have their litters in their own cage.  We'll also likely need a few more cages for growing out the litters in, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  We plan to breed the rabbits in about a month, when they're 4 months old.

The woman that I got the rabbits from has a pretty decent sized operation that keeps their family in rabbit meat all year round.  She also does the butchering herself, and I'll be heading over there to watch her slaughter and clean a round of them the next time she does it, so we can learn how to do it on our own.  I'm also excited about having a whole slew of rabbit pelts, and am reading up on how to tan them.  We'll also use the bones to make stock, likely replacing our usual chicken stock with rabbit stock from here on in.

Aside from the sustainability aspect, knowing where our meat comes from is important to us as well.  Knowing that these rabbits will have a good life, be respected and treated well, and then killed in a humane way, and every last bit of them put to good use.  A lot of people have problems with eating rabbit meat, but I find that it's only because they're so damn cute.  You can imagine eating a massive cow, or a slippery smelly pig, but somehow rabbits make people squeamish. Not me though!  (And not the kids either, they're very much on board!)

We're excited about this little venture, and hope it will be a fun and prosperous little endeavor!