~ October Farm Update ~

I shall attempt to make a list of all the animals we now have on our small 8.5-acre hobby farm. Bear with me here; it’s a long list. ;)

We have 1 dog named Crockett. I have blogged about him before and praised his cuteness.

We have 4 (soon to be even more) cats.
Grey C. is the eldest and has been with us longer than any of the other animals.
Baby is second, has had 2 kittens and is now expecting again.
Zorro and Tiger Lily are Baby’s kittens. And the cutest you’ll ever see!

We have 3 rabbits.
Hero is the male. I wanted to name him after some hero, but could not decide on one, so I simply named him Hero.
Missy belongs to my 8yo brother.
Bitsy belongs to my 3yo brother.
These three meat rabbits are going to be kept as breeding stock. I know it sounds horrible to some people, but we’ll be eating their offspring. (sorry!)
The plan is for me to train my brothers in how to take care of the rabbits so that they may one day take over the operation if and when I move away.

We have 6 Pekin ducks.
Mason. Named after Perry Mason in that awesome old TV show.
Drake. Named after Paul Drake in afore-mentioned show.
Della. Named after Della Street in… yes, you guessed it. ;)
Stella. Because it rhymed with Della I suppose.
And then come Molly and Dolly. I don’t know where those names came from, but they’re cute.

Then we have my favorite chicken, Ivory, who is a White Polish hen. She thinks she is a duck, following them wherever they go, drinking from their pond, and sleeping with them. She is definitely the funniest bird I have ever seen.

We currently have 34 chickens. I never knew that chickens could be so different from one another in the way they act. They all have their own attitudes and some are so naughty that they shall be sent to The Eternal Deep Freeze soon.

Well, there you have it. Our Cedar Cottage Farm has exactly 45 animals right now. When I am able to get some photos of our new rabbits, I shall post them here.

~ Mara

~ Dusty ~

My bunniest friend for over 7 years.

I love writing short stories about my life and my blog is my online diary. Writing is a good way to get things off my chest and I don’t have to bore anyone who doesn’t care to listen. This way I feel like I am telling someone and the people who care can read it for themselves. :)

Tonight I am writing about my pet rabbit, Dusty. I do not remember the day or the exact year that we got him, but I do remember picking him out. As soon as I saw that little white and tan bunny I knew he was perfect. We got him from a feed store in Richland Center, Wisconsin and I rode home with him in a little cardboard box. Oh, it took all my strength not to peek in at him just a teency bit. For 3 years he practically sat in our dining room. There was a small porch right outside the dining room and a window close to the ground. His cage fit perfectly so that it opened up into the room. That meant not having to go outside in the winter and I would open the window to let him have our heat and air conditioning, depending on the weather.

When it was time to move to Black River Falls, Dusty went to live with Grandpa and Grandma in Tomah. Though Grandma loved having him, I now wish I could have kept him for those 4 years. It doesn’t feel very fair to have only visited him once in a while. Last year when we moved here to Tomah, I could not wait to have Dusty moved back here with us and I got the necessary things done quickly so he could. Unfortunately, winter came too soon and stayed too long and I only got short visiting times with my bunny. After the weather turned nice this spring, he went into his summer cage out in the grass, and until yesterday he was the happiest, most care-free rabbit in existence. I am very sad but also glad that he had just gone to sleep like any other night. He never got mean or fat or cranky. He never started biting like my very old rabbit, Whiskers did. It was so cute to watch Dusty trim his own toenails and I was happy that I didn’t have to do it. And his little teeth were even and always in good shape. It hasn’t really sunk in yet… seeing him laying still in his cage and having to put my favorite pet in the ground seems like a terrible dream. But I just think of all the times he made me laugh and I feel better. Or I look at the pictures my siblings drew of him and tell them it’s all OK.

Well, I hope this story did not come across as a terrible tear-jerker but I feel much better after writing about him. I never thought I would grow so attached to a rabbit, they’re so quite and you can’t teach them anything. But maybe that’s what makes them so nice; they are so dependant on their owners.

I’ll miss Dusty a lot and probably for a long time, but I am very happy he lived a full bunny life. And I feel better still that Momma is going to give me our male breeding rabbit when we get them. Even though no rabbit will ever be as wonderful and nice as Dusty.

I loved you, my little Dustbunny. <3

~ Mara

~ Our Critters ~

Dusty, at 7 years old, is our oldest pet here on Cedar Cottage Farm.

Crockett comes next at a little over 1 year.


Then there's Grey C. She is just under a year old.


Then Baby. She is going to be a first-time mommy soon!


Then come our ducks, who hatched April 12th.


And last, but not least, our chicks. Hatched May 18th.



We just received the chicks this morning and already I am wishing they were old enough to be outside. It's incredible how much noise they can make!


~ Mara

~ Pekin Ducklings ~

Today we bought 6 Pekin Ducklings from our local Tractory Supply Co. :D

We also got Crockett moved onto the inside porch at night. Still not very comfortable with him being outside on his lead all night due to the large packs of coyotes. Oh yes, and the black bear.

As I said before, we are getting our assorted chicks sometime in early May and meat rabbits will arrive sometime in the month of June.

Stay tuned!

~ Mara