I had the excellent opportunity of participating in the dinner event Outstanding in the Field this holiday weekend. Their mission is to “re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”  For this most recent Bay Area dinner this translated into amazing chef Nicole LoBue creating a masterpiece of a dinner with my rabbits.

The weekend started with my processing the first litter I raised. I had a helper along the way with the care and handling (thanks Ellie!). Dressing the rabbits went exceedingly smooth and I discovered they are much faster to process than even chickens. Via Nicole’s magic, the rabbits were transformed into grilled rabbit confit with plum and preserved Meyer lemon, with greens’ they called “everyone’s greens.” This I am assuming meant they took the collective greens from the various urban farmers.

tea break with hides

legs in duck fat

Rabbit confit dinner

For some lucky reason, several urban farm purveyors sat at the same table. I had the delight of speaking with Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway from Little City Gardens whose products were featured in the Little City Gardens salad of greens, cucumbers, fava flowers, borage and goat cheese from one of the Pineheaven Farm (an goat farm in Monclair). Next to me were Kevin Bayuk and Ben who provided the duck eggs for the crazy good duck egg, frilled porcini, nasturtium custard.

duck egg Ben and other attendees

And across the table was a woman named Lisa who interned with Donkey and Goat Winery and incidentally helped make the 2009 Isabel’s Cuvee, Grenache Rose we had with our first course.

Lisa, Danielle, Olivier, & Novella

And natch, Novella was there. Her Ghost Town Farm produce made its way into several dishes including a heavenly dessert of grilled figs with berries and green coriander chantilly. Damn that was good.

There was an interesting viewing in the winery from the Edible City series. In preparation for our dinner, this clip featured Jim Montgomery processing a rabbit. The summer night was a typical crisp night, so cold in fact that the organizers moved the tour bus alongside the table to block the Arctic wind.

Aside from the wind chill factor the event seemed a success with lively conversation, great food and connection to how the food was produced.

The weeks are moving fast now. Quick recap:

With the heavy spring rains this year, the peas finally grew! This amounted to about 1lb yield. This was my third year trying. The key- lots of water.

The kits are growing rapidly…

As are the kids around me (Happy Birthday Violet!).

The honeybees are swarming again,

and again.

Sidewalk art courtesy of Harper

Lisa the bunny had her litter. I had the 28-31 day range marked on my calender but I noticed yet again no nesting was occurring on her side. She was definitely pregnant as she was fuller and lumbering, taking frequent breaks. On day 30 I noticed some strange fluid in some of the items in her hutch. I was wondering if bunnies also break water…? Day 31 in the morning I saw the tiniest amount of blood on a leaf below her hutch. There were till no nesting materials (which led to exposure and death for the last kits), I decided to pull some cotton from an old pillow for insulation in case she did not get her act together. Then I left for work. Luckily, my very generous neighbors, Arin and son Harper, agreed to check on Lisa through out the day. Apparently by about 3PM Lisa was in her next box breathing rapidly and moving things around. By 6PM when I arrived to check on them I saw the lovely sight of a next box full of rabbit fur. She did it!

Lo and behold, the fur was moving! I reached in and found a nest full of fresh closed eyed kits. She kindled 10, 8 survived. This is fairly normal as a full healthy litter is 8, one for each teat. After that there is competition for food and its draining on the doe.

Its been a week since and the kits are growing quickly. They are filling out with fur. Their ears are becoming more pronounced and their eyes are open. They are in essence insanely cute. I check on Lisa at least twice a day now. She is very hungry and thirsty these days since she is feeding her young. She has been consuming nearly double her usual amounts. This is important to know for calculating costs of keeping larger meat bunnies. The kits are becoming more mobile but since their dominant motion is hopping, when I move aside nesting materials I am entertained by the site of what looks like big grey Mexican Jumping Beans bouncing straight up. Interestingly, the kits also make squeaky sounds.

Listening to me cooing over the cuteness of the kit, my husband attempted to admonish me for having the intent of eating these rabbits. He asked if the really cute one I’m holding would be the first one I’ll eat. I think his intention was to demonstrate a disconnect between loving an animal, caring for it, thinking it is cute and then killing it for food. This is coming from the man that has eaten meat on and off in his life for decades. The last stint prompted after a month in India at which point he declared he craved raw beef. But this is a blog about urban farming, not contradictions. So lets suffice it to say I don’t see things this way. I see raising my own animals as being intimately aware of what it does in fact mean to eat meat, that is, an animal dies. With that reality, I choose to eat meat but to do so in way that feels honest. Besides, I have no idea if this kit once grown to full size will be “the first” as they all kind of look alike and the probability I guess is 1 out of 8…so a 13% chance. It doesn’t make the little bunbun less cute…are cows not beautiful?

*Kindle means when the doe goes into labor.

Lets start off with this- keeping livestock is not for the weak at heart. This is true for breeding more than anything as it deals with things vulnerable, cute and tiny. Last weekend, I knew my bunny was pregnant. She was lumbering and taking frequent breaks to pant and lay about. I made sure to put extra straw in her nest box. A doe will kindle (give birth) between 28-31 days. The morning of day 28, I checked. No babies and I noticed no fur lining the nest. In fact, other than having munched on some of the straw I put in, “Lisa” was not making a nest. During pregnancy, a doe grows exta fur which she pulls out and interlaces in nesting material to create a well insulated and very soft nest.

Days 29-31 brought the same result, no babies. Normally rabbits kindle by the 31st day so when I checked that morning I was perplexed. However, sometime between that morning and the next, little Lisa did in fact kindle 8 fully developed kits. Sadly, without a proper nest they were exposed during the long cold night. The result of which was what appeared to be box full of dead kits.This was especially odd as Lisa had cleaned the placenta off of each of them and not harmed them. I thought maybe some were alive and that Lisa would gather her wits so I left them there while I went to work, but even before I left, she hopped around on top of them. Stupid rabbit. On my hurried return from work they appeared to be in the same state of scattered deadness.

Feeling sad and confounded, I called the breeder who provided Virgil and Lisa to find out if Lisa is prone to postpartum psychosis. Apparently, she has a good track record of maternal behavior. I then discussed what I may have done. It seems all the right things were done, with the exception of one suggestion made by the breeder. She’s heard from some of the women who breed rabbits that they take newborn bunnies that appear dead but are just cold and place them in their bras. I did not do this. Even now I am having a hard time imagining having gone to my new office job with a bra full of baby rabbits…likely dead ones. Should this occur again, I will intervene with a hot water bottle. I will also feed Lisa herbs to help bring her milk in. This should prompt her into appropriate action.

The breeder read off the list of litters Lisa’s had in the past and they had a high rate of success. She believes this lapse in maternal instinct uncommon for Lisa and suggested I try again. I will. Little bunny foofoo has three chances.

Last weekend’s Wolf Moon marked the turning point in the season. No more dormant trees and frosted over lettuce leaves. The days are lengthening and the temperature increasing. I am seeing more bird species in my yard and I recently saw a swarm of ladybugs (above pic).

It therefore seems a perfect time to start germination. Each year I try to be in rhythm with nature when I cultivate. Seeds and starts seem stronger and nature does a load the work. With that, I have thrown myself into the outdoor work in an attempt to catch up with Spring in all her glory. The results:

Major “landscape remediation” project to the front yard. After a summer of significant home remodeling, the front lawn was destroyed. I never loved it anyway. So I decided to attempt a more natural landscape of “no mow” fine fescue seeds with spatterings of wildflower seeds. I may have gone nuts with the Crimson Clover on one section. I’ll find out in a month or so.

Virgil cooling his, uh..heels.

I began my rabbit breeding program. I was waiting for the colder months to pass before starting. In preparation I read about how to prepare and what to expect. There is a simple but helpful series online called the Better Farming Series. I was expecting the pair to be shy and reserved for a few minutes, at least. Apparently the timing was right, no introductions, no delays. A successful connection was made and I expect to have a litter in 28-31 days.

I am also raising two pullets (young hens) to swap out two older hens from my flock that seem to have slowed, or entirely stopped, laying.

I will place the shallow honey frames I removed from the hive for the winter back on. I’ve had the bagged frames sitting in my chest freezer to kill off any moths or other bugs that may have inhabited the honeycomb.

Now I am running off to work on the very unglamorous chore of pulling weeds, lots and lots of weeds. Sources of inspiration: 1) Oakland Public Library’s audiobooks on mp3. I am now listening to my first Ivan Turgenev novel. 2) El at Fast Grow the Weeds and Stefani at Sicilian Sisters Grow Some Food.

I took the leap…I made the jump…I…ok ok. The rabbits are here. Vienna Blue Rabbits, which came to be known as American Rabbits (or was that Freedom Rabbits?) after WWII. The buck was named Virgl and the doe, my small friend Neehal just named Lisa. Why Neehal? Why “Lisa?” Why not something like Franziska? Either way, I now welcome Virgl and Lisa to the farm. These bunnies are already a year old so I won’t be cooking ‘em up. They will help me start off a breeding program.

A very cool detail in acquiring the rabbits, the breeder, Shayne (a 4H leader in Alameda), asked to barter an urban farm basket worth the cost of $40/rabbit. So I got to go through and price out a basket of farmed goods. A few key items such as Lauren’s membrillo, and persimmons from her yard, and our tomatoes, organic Meyer lemons, and backyard honey brought the basket to $80 in the blink of an eye. I threw in some Vin de Noix as a sign of my gratitude to Shayne for being so cool as to barter.

So now I begin the adventure of rabbit keeping.