But it’s not as cold as it could be, even if it’s an unending light rain.

This last weekend was busy. I drove about 350-400 miles, split among three trips, for various reasons.

First trip was to rescue to lovely Maine Coon sisters before their current family gave up and took them to a pound. One is still skittish and very scared, but the other’s settled in quite nicely. They look nearly identical, and although we can tell them apart side-by-side (even without the one’s shaking-in-fear), it’s difficult without them side-by-side. They’re very skinny. The previous family rescued the girls from a household that was feeding them dog food, and it feels like they never quite recovered from the partial starvation. Hopefully with the high end cat feed our cats get will result in some weight gain.

Second trip resulted in the menagerie being expanded to include ducks, Rouen and Campbells. Unfortunately, five were drakes, so four had to be butchered for the safety of my chickens and the two duck hens. I picked out the prettiest and largest drake to keep.

Third trip, we picked up some cages that I might use to grow Coturnix quail. I haven’t quite decided on that expansion yet, but it’s still a taller brooder with feeders. The cages are still in the trailer, because I haven’t been able to get to unloading that yet.

I got to test out my Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment on Wednesday, when I made some “keto egg roll”. I’ll try to get to making the rabbit sausage I purchased the grinder for here soon.

For Thanksgiving, we had turkey, duck l’Orange, and my typical arrangement of sides and dessert. Very little of the duck was left. I’ll be making stock from the carcass shortly.

Wednesday, the baby bunnies were moving around a lot, but eyes hadn’t opened yet. Today, I went up to find them jumping in and out of their nestbox, and getting into trouble. After the baby “drought” of the last few months, it’s nice to have bunbuns in the rabbitry again.

And on another positive note, I got my Marans olive egger (who lays very dark eggs) to start using a nestbox again … and today, the Ameracauna actually laid an egg, also in the nestbox. She hasn’t laid any eggs in 2 months at least, not after the stress of the raccoons.