The week started off with a drive in our new (to us) Ford F350 pickup truck to Josh’s house (Josh of Rural Relations with Josh), about two hours away. I had gotten together with him several times, but this was the first time meeting his family. We thoroughly enjoyed his wife and children and our time at their place. While there Josh taught me how to split wood (I grew up in the suburbs…), and Brynn and Alison enjoyed learning how to ride his off-road mini-bike. It was fun to see his place, “in real life”, and see what he describes in his blog posts. While there are some great aspects to his property, I also saw the disadvantages and hassles he has discussed. Again I’d encourage everyone, develop community, get to know both your neighbors and the like-minded preppers around you; take the initiative and reach out to them — I believe community will be the key to survival in the future.

Our “father” rabbit, Winston, had an ear infection this week. So we went to our favorite rabbit resource, Rise and Shine Rabbitry, and determined he had a mild/moderate case of ear mites. We’ve been treating it by putting drops of olive oil mixed with tea tree oil into his ears and massaging it in. Apparently ear mites can live up to 28 days, so we’ll treat regularly for the next month. We definitely do not want them to spread to Clover, our pregnant doe, or her future babies.

Summer here in Western Washington is pretty much over. After almost three months of sunny days, but without too hot of temperatures, it’s been one of the best summers we can remember. But now they say rain and the clouds are on the way again; possibly with very heavy rain this weekend.

We’re done with summer gardening. We picked everything still on the vine and will can some salsa this weekend. We left most of the plants themselves in place, for now, and will pick them as needed to feed the rabbits. We just received our fall/winter crop seeds in the mail. We’ll be growing a bunch of greens, mainly for the rabbits, and a compost cover crop for the garden as a whole. After most of the plants are out of the garden we’ll cover the garden with the hay and manure from under the rabbit hutches as a fertilizer-rich mulch layer.

What did you do?