The SC Suburban Homestead has become the CO Suburban Homestead

I know this has been the first post in over a year. We moved to Colorado, and have been getting settled here. I considered abandoning the blog because it really is not a South Carolina Suburban Homestead anymore. I am still planning on getting our new home planted, built and fully transformed (again) to try to make this happen. I have not given up on the homestead goals, or dreaming of the lifestyle. I have gained a lot of wisdom through this whole experience, and have decided, in that to take a different path to get to a still very similar goal. This time, the plan is going to be to grow this homestead slowly, more organically.

I am currently in the last week of pregnancy (Thank Goodness) and so there may be another lull in posts until spring. Who knows? Richard says I need to write more, and that it would be good for me to keep track of these escapades so some other lunatic can benefit by all the mistakes we are making. Ha.

So anyway, here is the update. We now live is a smaller 5-bedroom house in the metro Denver area. We inherited a lot more outdoor space than our house in South Carolina, that is currently overgrown with weeds and invasive trees and large shrubs. Consequently a lot of our energy here soon will be devoted to eradicating and ripping up, rather than building and putting in. Which I think will be a good way for me to be forced into limiting the scope of projects right away, for many reasons most predominantly of which is that it is going to take much more work to get to the place to be able to build on. When I have to dig out a large forsythia bush before I have space to plant something new, the chances that I will go crazy overplanting is far less probable. Either way, I do feel the extensive scope of our homestead in SC was, in retrospect far too much to take on at once. And in the spirit of learning from my mistakes, I am committed to a slow, organic growth rate for this homestead.

I will post pictures tomorrow of what we are working with, as well as our latest project which I am about to describe.

So, we recently fell into rabbits, and under the compostable allure of their droppings I committed my dear husband into keeping them. We now have one male and one female. Zen often changes their names, so we are never sure what exactly to call them at any given time. The male is white with brown spots, and most often is referred to as Roger Rabbit. The smaller rabbit is a black female with brown spots, who is either called Black Panther or Black Widow, depending on the day. I am convinced that she is incredibly traumatized by the constant sexual advances by her roommate. And before you ask, they are both supposed to be "fixed" but having little knowledge prior to our receipt of them, are still not sure that is the case. We shall see. If not, you will not be hearing about rabbits any more, as they will have a new home.

So, onto our latest project. We had a new need to build rabbit housing (see above) as the cages we received them in were too small for two rabbits and I felt abusive every time I saw them. The cage was cleaned regularly, but still seemed to always be dirty, and far too confined. I have a real problem with animals being forced to do or to live in ways that run counter to their nature. They couldn't hop, or scratch in the dirt, or run, or anything. So, we spent this weekend building them a new enclosure. The footprint of their new space is a 4 foot square, that sits 3 feet high. I can describe how we built it if anyone is interested, but the cost was somewhere around $50. We painted it with an exterior latex paint, and I let Zen pick the color. He chose what I believe to be the absolute, most perfect shade of deep red. I was quite proud because I had refrained from trying to influence his decision in any way, and am incredibly happy with how it looks. Like I said earlier, I will post pictures asap. Anyway, for the structure of the cage, it is built using a 2x4 frame, and has a plywood top and the bottom is open to the ground, so they can scratch and eat weeds (which he have in large supply) and their droppings can nourish the ground and keep us from having to expend the energy and time to clean the cage daily. Plus, it will directly fertilize the ground without having the extra step of being moved to the compost pile first.

So, anyway, we completed construction  and moved the bunnies into their new home yesterday evening. This morning we watched and Black Panther completed their Great Escape by tunneling out from under the open-bottomed enclosure. We moved the whole setup (temporarily) to a concrete pad we have, that will someday become the greenhouse. It has successfully prevented subsequent escapes, while we brainstorm a more permanent solution. One possibility is to put the entire enclosure on wheels so that we can move it (like a chicken tractor) to our most lush patches of weeds, and relocate it before any tunneling operations can reach completion. The pros to this are that they would be able to work their bunny magic on whatever part of the yard they were most needed, as well as that it would make it easier to relocate them in the garage during winter. Keeping in mind that in the one night on their new location they really did destroy any evidence of weeds, left wonderful nutrients, and tilled and shallow area of soil. The cons are that once the other elements of the yard start to take shape, especially the more architectural features, it will be difficult to maneuver such a large enclosure and we may be relegated to keeping them in a semi-permanent position anyway. So, there aren't really optimistic long-term visions for this plan. The other is to fortify our perfect bunny location to prevent escapes, and to protect them during the winter. The pros are that it would require much less regular maintenance, and be far more convenient in terms of long-term energy and time investment. Also, it would make sure that they are not confined in an inside space all winter, where their enclosure would have to be cleaned regularly. The downsides are the initial investment and troubleshooting. We will have to acquire supplies to make the modifications, and then (since I am making up the designs as I go, with no knowledge or experience with rabbits) make sure they work. Plus, any modifications are going to be far more permanent, and in the event that we no longer have bunnies one day, it will be something that we will have to either undo or work around. I will keep you posted as to what we decide, but I know at this point that the boys are leaning towards making the structure more permanent. I will do some more research, though, as I know who will ultimately be making the decision.

So, pictures to come, sorry for the windy update. But to be fair, it has been more than a year.
xoxo