July Miscellany From Cold Comfort Farm

Wow, what a busy month!  Marti, Mark's sister, has been a great helping hand but will be heading home (south to Wyandotte, MI) next week.  Diane, my sister, and her grandson (my great nephew), Grant Stellwag, came for a visit last week. The weather has been hot, we actually had our air conditioner on twice!  Now we have BEAUTIFUL weather.

It's been Michigan cherry season! (our neighbor allowed us to pick from their sour cherry tree last week).  The jam we made will taste wonderful this winter on toast.

With Grant and Diane, we've visited our  beaches and Houghton's "shoots and ladders" slide park  (left), visited neighboring towns, our neighbors cows and pigs (his top request), and went for rides on our ATV and paddle boat in the pond. I think he had a good trip to the farm.

Going Exploring!

Morning

Evening

Our rabbits kits (see below) grow each day - they are bigger by the evening than they were that morning!  There are eight babies; one black, one variegated black, two brown, three white, and one silver.  Diane helped me try to figure out their sex but they are still too young for us to tell.

They have been popular with all our family, neighbors, and are even going to go to our local pre-school for show and tell this Thursday morning.  Our cats seem amazed by them - especially their twitching noses.  Cleo, one of our cats, walked up to sniff one of them in the grazing fence.  She was nose to nose with it and was just as they touched noses, the rabbit twitched its nose.  The cat leaped back as if on a spring and ran off...she has never come close again. We wish we had a camera, you would have seen it on YouTube.

I hope to breed the Rex rabbits as soon as I find a female and then sell their offspring for pets as they are the most clean, nice, and smart rabbits I've ever owned!  They have been a joy to own and have in our barn.  Their coat (pelt) feels like a cross between cashmere and velvet - they, someday, might make the best and warmest mittens imaginable!

Our veggie and fruit garden is doing well - I've harvested our first broccoli and beets/beet greens of the season.  Our onions are close to harvest and our squash is starting to go crazy - with six squash on each plant! We've gardened before, but this is a first in this very cool environment so we are discovering and experimenting with what will work up here.  I will be happy with any harvest we achieve. 

So far, it's been a great summer!