Surprises

Another one of those little surprises on the farm happened yesterday, between breakfast and lunch.

About three weeks ago some of our friends decided that they were done with their rabbits.  The rabbits were from the first litter we raised here, and they had had them for 2.5 years.  Our friends and enjoyed the experience, but they were done.  So we took back their rabbits--three total--two does and a buck.  Three days later, Lola, one of the does, started picking up hay in her mouth.  I then remembered what Karsynn had said only a week earlier:  "Oh, and by the way, Remy (Remington) has gotten onto Lola's side (of the hutch) a couple of times."

Great.  Kits whose parents are siblings.

But with every passing day, and no signs of pregnancy or kits, I hoped Lola only had a false pregnancy.  By the third week of having her, I was quite sure that all was going to be well.

And then she started to pull a ton of wool.  In the three weeks she had lived with us, she made one or two nests and pulled a little bit of wool, so I nervously tried to shrug this one off, too.  But she was pulling a lot of wool.  Maybe she was just a little hot in this 40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.

At 12:30 PM on Wednesday I decided to check on Lola.  I had peeked into the nesting box tons of times already in the last three weeks, and found nothing, so you can imagine my surprise when I found kits this time.  I had been dreading it for three weeks, but when it actually happened, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement, the excitement when you see an animal only minutes old and just starting to discover its new world.

All five in the nest box

Fawn

Chocolate

REW

Broken lilac

Lilac

There are five kits.  The broken is a little small and he just may not make it.  Because the parents are siblings I won't be selling these as show bunnies.  Some breeders are just fine doing that, and breeding siblings together is actually a great way to find out if you have any undesirable recessive genes in your breeding stock.  I'm just not comfortable selling them as show rabbits.  However, they will still be just fine to be sold as woolers.

On the Needles Today (6 December 2016)

I think far too many knit baby booties look like ridiculous clown shoes.  Maybe it's why some babies cry--they know how silly those booties make them look.  (My babies rarely cried--probably because I refused to humiliate them with ridiculous clothes and accessories.)  Anyway, when I was quite happy when saw the pattern for these booties--I had a pattern for a simple, quick, and yet very stylin' baby shower gift.  And I also sold my first pair of these booties on Etsy last week. 

The tan yarn is the most divinely soft alpaca fiber I have ever spun.  I got the entire fleece for about $4. (I bought something like 10-15 fleeces for $50 off Craigslist.  The fleeces came from a woman whose mother was neighbor to a woman who had alpaca ranches in Oregon, New York, and Nevada.  She was moving and for some reason still had these fleeces).  The rest of this fleece needs to be spun into yarn to make a most luxurious sweater.

I've got to figure out how to photograph these better.

The off-white yarn is one ply of very soft alpaca and one ply of white angora.  Super soft and super warm.  Makes me wish I were a baby again--almost.  I just wish booties made in my size would look as cute.  However, I don't think that is possible.