Labor of Love

This weekend has truly been a lot of what we call a "labor of love".

It started out bright and early Saturday with a trip to Lowes with my Dad.  We purchased another set of insulation for the rabbit barn while Tim was at home pulling out cages and cleaning trays.  When we returned, I ran inside to order pizza for lunch.  Tim was off to go pick it up, while "Deddy" (I am going to spell it phonetically, rather than what I consider the more childish "Daddy") and I started cutting insulation in to strips.

After a quick lunch, we worked until 7pm, putting up insulation, cutting "specialty" pieces and putting up a heavy duty plastic to shield the new insulation from stray urine streams.  When young bucks figure hit puberty, a favorite game is to see how far they can shoot their pee.  Gross but true, especially in the presence of other males!

Unfortunately we ran out of staples in the home stretch- we were literally shy just the last few to finish putting the plastic around one window and the last small space by the door.  It figures!

We completely rearranged the barn- I pulled out 10 cages for sale and moved my hay container in to one corner.  I plan on putting up shelves to accommodate nestboxes and other supplies.  The rabbits seem to enjoy the new space and I can't believe how much room we have!

Sunday was a more work- after a farewell church luncheon for the intern, we got down to business!  We took a quick trip back to Lowes for zip ties, wire cutters and more staples of course.

Once home, it took less than 5 minutes to finish putting up the plastic.  We move the new AC into it's window and it's running now on a test basis so I can get a sense of how great the insulation is going to work.

I reinforced one of the walls of the chicken coop with a taller, heavier duty wire- thus the need for the wire cutters.  We also moved around their ceiling tarp so that they have more sun on the west side of the coop.  They seemed to love the new sunshine- though the new suet holder stuffed with chickweed and dandelions may have sweetened their temperaments too.

We bought a packet of sunflower seeds and I planted six today.  My plan is to harvest the blooms for us and for the chickens to enjoy, especially after pricing bags of bird seed! Yeoch! I thought rabbits were an expensive hobby, but bird seed gives rabbit food a run for it's money!

So we've worked ourselves to death this weekend.  My back is super sore, but I'm so happy that all the animals are taken care of- I can go on our vacation and not worry about them... as much.

-Kristen