Oakland here I come!

Not normally words you would hear come out of my mouth with any excitement.  But thanks to the calender section in the back of the latest issue of Urban Farming magazine, I now know about the Rabbit Workshop occurring in this..."fair"...city in the month of October.  So if you are in the area and are interested in learning about butchering and tanning the hides of your fuzzy little ones, come on by and say hello!  I'll be the one looking squeemish in the back...
Oh!  And Sarah Cuthill of Frulingskabine Mico Farm will be there too!  So come say hi and learn how to get a rabbit from hoppy little cute thing to yummy stew in your belly and soft mocs on your feet!  Here is some more info for those of you brave souls interested.

Institute of Urban Homesteading
Rabbit Butchering and Tanning Demonstration
Saturday October 20, 12-4pm
Instructor: K.Ruby Blume
Location: North Oakland
Cost: $40-65
Following a tour of the rabbitry and a brief discussion on the benefits of rabbits as urban livestock we will demonstrate humane slaughter and dressing. Also included will be ideas for preparation of both rabbit meat and organ meats. Then the instructor will take you through a step by step demonstration of the tanning process. Some hands-on will be possible. It is highly recommended to take Raising Rabbits as a compliment to this class.

Rabbit Road Trip, Part 2

So after all was said and done, we loaded Gnomeo (right) and Juliet (left) into their carriers and put them in the back of the van with the window shade over them to try to keep the sun for beating directly on them.  I brought some newspaper for the bottom of the cages and Sarah gave me some hay, I think they were as happy as they could be for the ride.  Rabbits do not eat or drink during travel, I did bring some food and water for the stops that we made but none of it ended up getting ingested by either rabbit. 
We drove from Fruhlingskabine Micro Farm 5 hours to my Mom's house, where I had dinner and we tried to give the bunnies a little food and water.  About an hour later I was back on the road to my house, which is another 5 to 6 hour drive.  I can't tell you how long it was, it was just kind of a blur at that point.  All I know is that I started driving at right about 7 am and made it home around 1 am.  Tired person and tired rabbits.  I got them set up in their cages, hastily, and crashed.  I would love to show more exciting photos, but really the entire drive home looked like this...

So you really aren't missing much.  Except that spot on my windshield which happened somewhere around Turlock - the first time we went through it.  So the rabbits are here and we are all still alive!  My total road time, up and back, was about 19-20 hours.  LONG drive for two little rabbits.  But now I have beautiful rabbits to build my rabbitry and that is awesome.  Thank you to my Mom for going on this insane trip with me and Sarah at Fruhlingskabine Micro Farm for being my friend, mentor and provider of beautiful rabbits.  If you're in the market for Angoras and I'm too far south for you, check her out!

Rabbit Road Trip, Part I

Rabbit Road Trip 2012

 Well to have a rabbitry, one must obtain rabbits, right?  So bright and early one fine July morning...okay it was actually dark, really dark and early.  But still hot.  Annoyingly so.  Who decided it should be 75*F outside my house at 4 am?  Anyway, I left my house in the dark, hot, early hours of the morning and headed up to the Central Coast of California to make a pit stop at my parents house to spend the night and pick up my Mom, who volunteered to make the long trek up to Sonora with me to get my new "livestock".  It turns out this was a GREAT help because most of the drive was exactly what I posted above.  LARGE expanses of flat, parched land.  I would have gone completely insane were it not for her - thank you MOM!

Ice cream stop at Cruisers in Copperopolis, Ca.  Very Stephen King, I was expecting to return to my van to find the tires flat and have to spend the night in the creepy little too perky town.

 

 

The next day, Mom and I jumped in the car a little later since we didn't have any reason to get going as early as I did the day before and headed up north.  We drove for about 5 hours, through a lot of cute little towns and tiny dots on the map...some dots not listed on the map.  We thought we were lost about twelve dozen times, mapquest can make anything difficult, just so you know.  Like I said, I am so glad my Mom was with me!  I never would have thrown caution to the wind and went against mapquest to get to Los Banos, but she did and we got there!  So when we reached the curiously named Copperopolis, we stopped for a bathroom break and something to drink.  We ended up getting an ice cream, since they had Mom's favorite Pistachio, and I just love ice cream so I'll go for it anytime.  But the longer we sat there the more creeped out we got.  Copperopolis, besides having nothing in the way of copper anywhere within it's limits, is straight out of a Stephen King book.  The people all know each other, there are only 5 buildings and one is the town hall, there are apartments on the second floor of those 5 buildings which make you think that the people who work here live here too...just creepy.  So we got out of there fast.  Now I regret not getting a tee shirt.  Oh well.

Angels Camp, Ca

We finally made it to our overnight stop, Angels Camp California.  Home to the Jumping Frog contest Mark Twain wrote about.  It had a cute little historic downtown area which I hope will someday be filled up.  It was about half empty, but what was there was cute.  The sidewalks were covered with plaques to the jumping frogs of the past - each year's winner had it's own star.  Really cute.  We also got to see this little gem -

I don't know why the writing came out backward, I promise it was right in real life.

Mom looks so cool on that old chicken ladder.  I personally thought this was a high point on the trip so far.  That ladder just went forever!  And you would totally need it too, that was a steep hill!

A girl's gotta eat.  We checked in to our hotel and went down the block to get some Round Table Pizza, which Mom and I used to get when I was growing up but haven't had in about 12 years.  Hanging out in the hotel with my Mom, watching movies on HBO, eating yummy pizza and drinking wine from those tiny little single serve bottles = priceless.  It was a nice night.  And even nicer to wake up to this...

I have never had a view like this out my hotel room window before, have you?  We got on the road just after 7 am, hit the first Starbucks we came to and headed out to Fruhlingskabine Micro Farm to pick up the bunnies!  Yipee!  I was so excited, but the directions were so bad (thanks again mapquest) that it took us a bit longer than expected to get there...although we did get to see some interesting sites. 

Mark Twain's Cabin on Jackass Hill

Like Mark Twain's cabin.  Who knew?  So when we finally got there I was a little tense from the drive not going as I thought it would, but I was still SUPER excited to be meeting my e-mail buddy Sarah and my new rabbits.  Sarah was so nice and introduced us to her daughter and her bees and of course, her rabbits.  It is nice to be able to see her set-up and that she was willing to show us around and tell us whatever we wanted to know.  My Mom now is considering a cob oven for her yard and I am trying to figure out how I can hide a hive from my neighbors, unless they happen to be reading this.  Then I have not, nor will I ever consider putting a hive in my back yard.  Ever. 
Sarah gave me a grooming lesson, taught me how to sex a rabbit, what a normal rabbit should look like and how it should behave, gave me a care sheet in case I forgot the basics (because I did), gave me my pedigrees and was just overall extremely helpful!  I was only there for a little bit, but I would have loved to have chatted for days.  She mentioned on her blog that part of the fun of rabbit "farming" is meeting people and I totally agree.  She and I would never have met, had I not contacted her about her rabbits and I dare say she will be a great friend. 

Rabbit Buddies!  Left - me, right - Sarah Cuthill of Fruhlingskaine Micro Farm

An Award for Cold Hands Farm!

Wow!  My little blog here was nominated for a blogger award, how cool is that?  I would like to thank my friend Sarah over at Fruhlingskabine Micro Farm for nominating me!  I know I just started this Farm adventure, but I plan to give it a good go!

Now the rules....
Thank the person who gave you this award and  include a link to their blog. Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.  Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.  So in no particular order, here are some blogs that I LOVE to read!

1. Sarah at Fruhlingskabine Micro Farm
2. Jenna at Cold Antler Farm
3. Meg at Whatever
4. Nikki at WhiMSy love
5. Heather at Heather Ann
6. Alee at Farmgirl Alee and Farmerette Nora
7. Jeremy and Heather at McCool's Dusty Acres
8. Amanda at Itchin' Stitchin'
9. The Daughton Family at Firecracker Farm

....okay I can only come up with 9 that I read regularly...I'm always on the hunt for new blogs though, and with this new Farm, I'll be scouting out other Farm blogs like never before! Now I'm supposed to give you seven things about myself...hmmm

1. I love to bake pies...but really only apple.
2. I love to knit, but I have no patience...so often leave a blanket half finished FOREVER!
3. I love calamari, like seriously, LOVE IT.
4. I can read a 400 page book in less than a day.  I've done it a few times actually.
5. I really love sappy Christian old west movies.  I know that's very specific, it is what it is.
6. I have a special love affair with Honey Mustard Sauce.
7. I secretly wish I could make a living as one of those guides at a pioneer era recreation homestead, that dresses up and teaches school kids how to card wool or churn butter.

So now I'm off to let all the people I nominated know that, well, I nominated them.  So thanks again Sarah!