Spring Madness

For quite a long time, I have thought it would be nice to have a pet bunny. I even bought a book about rabbit care at a Goodwill book sale several years ago. About a month ago, I had the opportunity to adopt a bunny from a family that was a little overwhelmed by the work involved in taking care of two bunnies. They kept the black and white one, and I took the one that is white with pink eyes. Meet Moonpie:

Not only is she totally adorable and incredibly soft, but she is a great compost assistant. Ever since I starting adding the contents of her hay-box to the compost pile, the compost has really been cooking!

A couple of times a day I walk around the yard gathering bunny-salad for Moonpie to eat. She is very fond of cilantro, but she also likes a lot of the edible weeds that grow in the yard - chickweed, dandelions, violets.

In other news, of the hilarious "watch out what you ask for" variety, Moonpie had babies last week. All five of the surviving babies (a very tiny one didn't last beyond the first day) are in the picture, but one is only represented by its pink and white nose sticking out from under the pile.

The babies were born sometime between when we went to bed on last Monday evening and when we got up on Tuesday morning. We didn't know Moonpie was pregnant - she can't weigh more than four pounds - so the babies were a surprise! The book says that the babies will open their eyes after ten days, which means their eyes could open today.

We are hoping to find homes for four of them, but we plan to keep the grey one that matches our grey cat, Louisiana. My son has already named it Louie-too. With the waste generated by two bunnies, the compost pile is going to be smokin'!

Out in the garden, I've been planting almost nonstop. Normally, the planting madness wouldn't even have begun this early in the month, but the garden is nearly all planted. I have just two beds left. Of course, there will be more planting when the cool-weather crops are finished.

So far, the Kagran Sommer lettuce has not emerged (I'm about to give up on it), but the first lettuce (Capitan) is doing well:

There is spinach that is definitely harvestable (not an actual word, according to blogger):

The peas are flowering:

And the potatoes are looking healthy. I need to pull more dirt around these plants:

Some of the seeds that were planted in the last couple of weeks, for warm-weather crops, are already coming up. Four of the seven zucchini seeds have germinated, and those little plants are each making their first leaf. The salad cucumbers have germinated, too.

The bush beans have been patchy in their emergence, and when I poked around to see what was going on, I found that something has been nibbling on the germinating beans, so I replanted a lot more bean seeds. The rows will probably have to be thinned when they all come up, but I'd rather thin a too-thick patch than not have enough beans.

Hope everyone else's planting is going well!