Quad Amadillo Family

Not a whole lot of change with the rabbits. I have kept them in full coat since the weather has been pretty moderate this year. We have had good rain fall amounts this spring and this is the first week we will see low 90's during the day.

This morning I did find one of my jr rabbits had died during the night. This was a cull rabbit since the doe had a hernia from birth. It ruptured during the night and the rabbit died. It is unfortunate I didn't get her put down in a more humane manner.


On the lighter side, there is a family of armadillos living under the house deck. I generally find them annoying since they did holes in the yard, and disrupt the flowers and garden. But, these 4 little ones were so cute and I have never seen such relaxed armadillos as shown by the pics.





I haven't seen them in groups this size before. I have seen two chasing each other through the yard. They jump amazingly high.



They sniffed my feet pretty throughly and decided I wasn't something to eat.

Rescue Pet Raffle

The American Animal Rescue Society group is holding a raffle to generate funds and if you are a knitter or spinner the prizes are excellent and, of course, a worthy cause. You can view the prizes here. They have Golding Spindles, a Namaste bag with all the trimmings and some very nice yarn.

Reducing and reusing appliances

We are the proud owner of a used, but new to us, dishwasher. One of our neighbors upgraded their kitchen to stainless steel appliances and they were removing a perfectly good white dishwasher.

Our old dishwasher is black and in bad physical shape. The door had corroded away at the edges and it was causing leaks. It became so bad I had to do the dishes by hand or mope the floor after every load. We were reviewing the dishwashers over the last month on the market and I wanted a white one.

I was visiting with my neighbor after checking the mail and when I mentioned my problems with the dishwasher they offered theirs as it was just sitting in the garage and they were actively looking for someone who needed one. Talk about fate and timing.

So we now have a great "new" dishwasher and instead of 2 dishwashers going to the dump only one will go. Reduce and reuse.

Coyotes in the backyard

Recently in the news a city in North Texas closed a city park so the state could send in trappers to remove coyotes. This is because a couple of pets in the area had disappeared.

The city declared victory when it announced 5 coyotes were removed.

Everyone needs to stop and examine the stupidity of this act in time, expense and the lack of simple common sense.

If you choose to live close or in the woods you will have visitors from time to time from those woods. Especially if you leave pet food outside. You might as well ring the dinner bell if you do that.

And speaking of dinner bell. Your small dog or cat is on the menu. But not just coyotes find your pet appealing. Hawks, owls, raccoons, bobcats and mountain lions all will view your smaller pets as food.

So to blame "coyotes" for the disappearance of a few pets is not completely accurate. There are a whole host of possible suspects. The city should have asked to remove all the hawks, owls, raccoons, bobcats, and mountain lions from the park.

I mean isn't that what it means to move out closer to nature, be outraged when nature does what it does every day whether you live close or not, then complain about it, then demand the city remove the parts of nature that are causing offense, then feel justified when a few unlucky predators get caught.

I love all domestic pets and I throughly enjoy the wildness of the woods; the pets get hugs, tickles, and belly scratches, the wild creatures of the woods get my respect and admiration.

Spring Snow

We had an unexpected spring snow storm this weekend and it was bitterly cold. The Redbuds are in full bloom, now decorated with the last of the snow.

On Saturday the wind was howling and just a few flakes were coming down. As the day progressed sleet came down and that shortly changed to wet snow. By evening it was fluffy snow. It was blowing very hard and the snow was vertical half the time.

Sunday the wind was still high and temperatures very cold, but it was above freezing and snow melted away by early afternoon. By Monday we should be back to upper 60's and low 70's.



The February kits are growing and doing well. Here are two.... They were moved outside since they have gotten bigger. They are now 5 weeks.

The fawn is just adorable and I would have kept her, but she has a hernia so she can't be kept.