Productive day today.  I tilled the garden, including burying shrimp shells and stripped bones left over from stock.  Watching the ground steam was a trip and a half.  Dumped ashes on top.  Greg mucked out the shed and reloaded it.  Even with two applications of sunscreen and a hat, my face still wound up red.

We rearranged the rabbit hutches and I nailed backing onto them (feed bags and a vinyl-backed tablecloth) to keep the rabbit urine from eating into, oh, the side of the house.  Scooped up all the rabbit poo from under the hutch and pitched it into the compost.  Discovered 3-4 baby wasps' nests in the new hutch; promptly cleaned those out.  Moved the butchering station to the back of the house near the hose outlet.

Discovered that the old turkey pen had become OMG Lord of the Flies. o.O  Seriously.  That shit was gnarly as all hell.  Decided that we need to get out the flamethrower and bake the fuckers out.  That will have to wait for another day, though.  In airing out the turkey coops (which, sadly, had not been cleaned since their last inhabitants), I discovered . . . a bucket of feathers, guts, and blood.  From Thanksgiving, when the last three turkeys met their match.  *sigh*  I remember telling Uncle Mark to just chuck the bucket into the coop and we'd deal with it later.  Y'know, after it froze.  Well, it froze.  And then unfroze.  I have no idea how much of the fly issue is due to rancid turkey entrails and how much is due to rancid turkey excrement. *hangs head*  I did give the contents of the blood bucket a good burial and rinsing, though.

Since we started up the fire pit with the first bonfire of the season, we decided to invite several people over for dinner.  About half bailed, meaning that we wound up with the boys:  Pete, Kevin, and Casey.  The latter two had been trimming horse hooves all day and Casey had been checking on whether or not two of his mares had caught.  One of his gloves broke during the process.

For what it's worth, you do not test a mare's fertility by going in vaginally.  Nope, it's back-door rectal lovin' all the way, baby!  Casey brings up this topic of conversation as we're sitting around the bonfire at dinner, then proceeds to smell his hand.  There was also a significant amount of gas passed, and I was the recipient of some serious reverb. *facepalm*

But hey!  This wasn't just dinner--it was dinner and a SHOW.  Utilizing the bed of Kevin and Casey's pickup, we chucked the rabbits in the back and watched 'em fuck.  Errr . . . "breed," that is.  Casey had mentioned earlier that in his 4-H childhood he had bred rabbits; without knowing the ins and outs (so to speak) of reproduction, he noted that rabbits breeding smelled like French toast.

Yeah, I know.

There were plenty of jokes made about French toast, getting pregnant from sex in the back seat, and much cheering on of the rabbits.  The male (Thutmose) is perhaps a bit dense, as he kept aiming for Hatasu's head, or side, or back, or anywhere that wouldn't do any good.  He did successfully nail his daughter, the younger rabbit, two or three times.

Finally, at the end of the rabbit lovin', Thutmose curled up next to Hatasu and flopped down. (There were jokes made there, too, but Pete did point out that the rabbit had come something like seven times in the last twelve minutes, so we gave him a break.)  I climbed into the back of the truck to fetch out the rabbits and wound up with a damp wrist for my troubles.  Casey sniffed it in order to discern whether or not it truly smelled of French toast. (The answer, for those of you breathlessly awaiting, was No.)

We rounded out the night back in front of the bonfire again.  Greg tossed a few remnants of snow on top to tamp it out, and we all went our separate ways.  I sent leftovers home with Kevin and Casey, gave Pete's greyhound a farewell ear-tousle, and cleaned up from dinner.

A good beginning to spring, methinks. :)

Getting a lot of fox action lately.  Saw a pale blonde one trotting across the snow this morning.  I love having these guys nearby.

Spent a goodly portion of last night fantasizing about building the new turkey shed.  May have some feelers out for people who have more experience and who can help.  Wandered around the Milner Mall yesterday a bit and salivated over a set of windows from the Yacht Club.  They're already put together and would be great for a greenhouse.  Just gotta get all the scratch together to get this going.  *sigh*

Gotta get the turkeys lined up too.  At this point, looks like the mixed run is sold out 'til June.  Just gotta get everybody on board and go from there, I guess.  Money, too.  Argh.

Thinking lots more about goat possibilities.  Kevin and Casey are getting rid of all of theirs, and Greg and I talked last night about the possibility of doing goat milk next summer.  He was supportive of the idea and I know there's a high demand, especially for value-added products like cheese.  Just gotta hang onto the commercial kitchen.  Looking to do boarding swap with Brandie as a possibility.

SPRINGSPRINGSPRINGSPRINGSPRING!! *boing!*

My parents wound up coming through town last week.  As it so happens, it was Easter.  Over the last several years, the way we've observed it has fallen into the "Oh, hey, it's Easter" category, rather than any particular rituals.

Growing up, we'd do the Easter basket thing, but that was about it.  Greg, being Jewish, never even got that far.  He and I have talked about "doing Easter" before, but it's not been a priority by any means.

With my parents coming in and it being kind of a family tradition, we decided to go ahead and dye eggs and the whole ball of wax.  Mom even brought a small Easter basket; she'd been involved in some sort of community thing and one of the women she knew had made an Easter basket, but didn't have anyone to give it to.  So Mom passed it on to us, complete with basket, neon cellophane "grass," jellybeans, and little chocolate eggs.

The night before, I snagged a Paas kit from the store and boiled up some eggs.  Somewhere around mid-morning, we got started with the dye.  Mom and I were disappointed that Paas no longer includes a white crayon in their kit, so I scrounged up an old candle and we used that.

Dad, of course, kept to his traditional Easter-egg dyeing role. 

Peabody thought it was a great idea, too.  Then again, that's pretty much his typical MO.

After the eggs, for some reason I decided that it would be a good idea to dye the dog's feet.  (Don't ask me why; all I can tell you is that alcohol was NOT involved.)  I went for purple and wound up with a lovely shade of lavender.  Purple puppy piddy-paws, as I kept saying to him. 

I planned on redyeing his feet again the next morning, before our Heeling Friends volunteer shift, but Mom threw out the purple and I had to make do with green.  Hardly anyone noticed (all of one person, I think), but I had a grand time doing it.  With it being non-toxic, it wasn't going to hurt him, and the water-soluble aspect meant that it washed off very easily.

I think we have a new family tradition. *grin*


Later in the day, Greg and I had to make a run into town.  When we came back, we discovered that the Easter bunny had been there and had hidden all of our eggs.  Being a practiced hand at this, I spotted three within the first ten minutes of walking through the door, but waited until Mom was out of the tub for us all to go searching.  I beat Greg 8 to 4, but considering that he's never done it before and, as Dad stated, seemed to think the Easter bunny was smarter than he really was, Greg didn't do bad at all. 

We had a lot of fun and some good family time, which is what all holidays should be. :)

Dang.  I go away to Denver for five days (where the weather was in the '70s, thankyouverymuch) and come back to Much Less Snow.  This is especially of note once you consider that we got nearly two feet of the white stuff last Monday.

Well, Mother Nature's sure playing her tricks on us.  The previous two days' sunny weather has been dramatically replaced by a spring storm.  Looking forward to getting home and holing up this afternoon.