Coffee

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I was up early and took care of the rabbit and Blinky. Thank you for the kind words and prayers for Blinky. He is a total puzzle to me. He has been to the emergency vet twice and the regular vet twice. They cannot explain why he was ever throwing up or why he was dehydrating. He has had an x-ray and complete blood work. He is still not pooping in the litter box for the last few days. He was on a medication that I think was making him sick and it makes his eye water. He seemed doped and not happy, so we had him put on a different one. He did poop just a little bit. The medication can make him drool and also make his eye water. The vet had the prescription sent off to be compounded into a liquid. I ordered some things off of Amazon that i think has saved his life. One is in a tube and you put on your finger and stick in his mouth, which he does not fight me, but he will not eat it on his own. It helps with appetite and high calorie and vitamins. The other is a liquid to help with hydration and come back from surgery or illness. he will not drink it, so I have to syringe some down him several times a day. He does not look as dehydrated and is now drinking water normally. He does eat some. Last night he kind of just tore into his food and ate like he was hungry. I have not given him that medication for a couple of days. As much stuff as he is getting into him, I would think the throwing up would return. The vet said we can give him half a dose of the medication for the colon. I hate to do it, but I think tomorrow I will try half a dose. He is thin and tired and not himself, but he still follows me around and sleeps in his normal places. He does not seem to be suffering or giving up, so right now I think just trying to get him to eat more is all I can do.

I have my seeds ordered and getting ready for the greenhouse to be put together. I have never grown green onions. I ordered bunching onion seeds. Do I start them in the house? I am going to get on the list for manure delivery and keep checking when the nursery opens to get compost. I hope to get a bunch of things done before DD has the twins. She is due April 29, but I do not think she will go 40 weeks. She will be 29 weeks in a couple of days, but she is having trouble finding things to wear. She looks 40 weeks right now.

We have 4 days of single digits at night and I think a couple of -5. I am bringing the rabbit in this evening and put a cage in the kitchen floor like we did last year. I think we have around 6 inches of snow. The sun is shinning right now and it was around 30 when I got up.

 

[digitS']

@Gardening with Rabbits , I have been negligent about starting onion seed by about a week. The sunny weather misled me into thinking that it would be a quicker go this year once I did start. So, why didn't the sunny weather lead me into putting the frozen soil mix into the greenhouse to thaw? That delayed me another couple of more days ...

My thinking is that there's little need for lots of warmth for seed starting with onion family plants. I just use the unheated greenhouse and 15°F as a guide for putting the flat of soil and onion seed on the floor and covering it. If it is not supposed to be that cold outdoors, it can stay on the greenhouse bench. Probably, the seeds and sprouts should not freeze and, everything being about normal , it won't be that cold in there if it is only down to 15°f outdoors.

That's it, they start and grow very slowly in normal late Winter weeks. That's okay. On good days later on, they can come outside for hardening off. I suspect that they are prone to sunburn on those days so it has to be quite a pleasant day so it isn't too cold for them to be in the shade. Then, they can sit under a deciduous tree with intermittent sun and shade from the branches. Finally, they are set daily in full sun. No reason I can think of to harden off those plants any different from something like lettuce and cabbage even if those plants are started indoors and pampered during their earliest weeks.

Steve, pleased to learn that Blinky is doing better for you

 

[digitS']

 

[baymule]

I slept till 6:45. Finishing my second cup of coffee, then outside to work sheep through the chute. I need to sort 2 ewes with their lambs out of the middle field and put them in the front field.