Himalayan Looking Havana Baby Bunnies

Oops, our female bunny (Pepper) was pregnant when we adopted her. The problem was that we didn't know she was! She hadn't been separated early enough from her brother prior to them coming to live with us, and she wasn't showing any signs at all. Mother bunnies are supposed to start ripping their fur out from their front at least a couple of days prior to their kittens being born, and to start nesting. Apparently they can get moody too. Nope, not Pepper. She loved cuddles, loved being upside down on our laps getting lots of attention so imagine my great surprise when I found this...Hello little bunnies!

A two day old bunny. This is the day they grow fur. They are born with teeth and their eyes remain closed. On the subject of picking them up, if the mother rabbit is familiar with your scent and is tame enough, she won't mind you handling her babies. At least, ours didn't. She seemed to like all the attention!

Getting curious. Bunnies are about 1 week old here. Their eyes will open after 2 weeks.

Bunnies are about a week and a half here. They grow so fast, and are so fat! Means Mummy Bunny is doing a good job.

Just small enough to fit in one hand.

Two of these bunnies were boys, and one a girl. We found a good home for the two boys, and kept Pepper's daughter, 'Checkers', who is just as delightful. The two have formed a bond and are so lovely to watch. It has been a wonderful opportunity for my children to see this life cycle and how quickly they grow.

Week 6 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Week 6 $10 Challenge:
5 kg rice

Week 6 $20 Challenge:
10 kg rice

There are three main types of rice: Long grain (such as Jasmine and Basmati), Medium Grain (Calrose and Arborio) and Short Grain (Japanese and Pearl).

For long term storage, you want to store the white rice varieties. Brown rice has a shorter shelf life and will go rancid, but can successfully be stored for 1-2 years.

If stored properly, white rice can be stored for up to 30 years or more!

To see a Brown Rice - v - White Rice comparison, click here: http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/brown-rice-vs-white-rice-a-comparison.html


Storing Rice:


There are a few different ways of storing rice for your food storage;

- Keep it in its original packaging. This will work for shorter term storage. If it is good quality rice, you shouldn't get weevils inside the packet.

- In the freezer. You can store rice in the freezer long term. Not only does this method kill any residing bugs, but it keeps your rice fresher for longer. The downside, as I discovered, is if you have a power failure. We stored ours in bags under our frozen meat in our chest freezer. After a 5 day blackout we realised that our bags of rice had become brittle (due to freezing), and the juice from the meat managed to get through all 50 kilos of rice. :( Now I know that you need to ensure your rice is packaged properly when storing in the freezer.

- In PET containers. Rice will last around 5 years stored this way. See my post on http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2011/01/pete-rice-storage.html for how to store it properly.

- In Mylar bags (foil pouches). Stored in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and then in plastic tubs, your rice can last 30 years or more if the temperature is kept constant.

- In food grade plastic tubs. There are some videos on the Internet showing people storing their food in big buckets/food grade tubs. You need to line the tub with heavy duty plastic. Some add dry ice to remove the oxygen from the tub, and seal correctly (whichever method you choose to use to remove the oxygen so nasties don't survive).

I tend to store different types of rice: Jasmine, Basmati and Calrose for variety reasons. Rice pudding is a great food storage recipe for using up your short grain rice, milk powder and sugar. Long grain rice can be cooked and mixed with tinned lentils, tinned corn, soy sauce etc for an easy food storage meal.

Don't forget that in order to cook rice, you will need to store extra water - for water storage purposes.

An overload of cuteness!

A female bunny we adopted ended up unexpectedly having a litter of bunnies. Turns out she was already pregnant when she arrived here, but showed absolutely no signs of pregnancy until they were born. The mother is such a patient, gentle doe, and her daughter (pictured) is very much the same. I couldn't resist taking a photo of her when she was little - fast asleep and content on the piano. She was about 2 weeks old here.

February Challenge - Toilet paper

This month's challenge is to store at least 2 weeks worth of toilet paper. In an emergency situation, this is not something I particularly want to go without. An unused roll can double up as tissues, paper towels and I have even heard of people using clean toilet paper rolls (with the paper on of course) to apply pressure to wounds to stem bleeding - I guess that was all they had available.

There are some alternatives. I've heard of "wee wipes" (instead of using toilet paper for 'number 1's', you use small square cloths made from terry toweling or other spare soft cloth you have around). I'm not game enough for those, and the emergency situations I'm thinking off - I'm not quite sure if I'd have the water spare to wash them. Bit of a delicate situation, isn't it!

If you already have two weeks worth, perhaps challenge yourself further and, if you have the space, store 4 weeks worth.

Perhaps also think (not for very long through - lol) about how your family would manage if you weren't able to use your toilets. Emergency situations for toilet happenings don't always need to be in the form of a big natural disaster. We had tree roots get into our pipes on the nature strip resulting in us not being able to flush the toilet for a few days. That wasn't so bad for us, but the plumber advised me there are worse scenarios where sewer water has backed up and overflowed in the bathrooms. Eek!

If you do a lot of camping, you may have a camping toilet. Perhaps you have some cheap 'almost disposable' buckets that could be used as chamber pots at a time of need.

Okay, enough grossness for one day ;D Time to water the garden before my 'eating plants' shrivel up.

Week 5 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

Week 5 $10 challenge

2 can tomato soup, 2 kg powdered milk

Week 5 $20 challenge

4 cans tomato soup, 4 kg powdered milk

Soup

So why are we storing more soup? Soup is versatile when it comes to food storage. It doesn't take much to prepare (make sure you store extra water), you can add other things to it such as pasta, vegetables, meat, fish etc. Of course, if you don't like tomato soup, store another type of soup. You could even store pasta sauce. I like to store tomato paste instead. You can get little tins of tomato paste from Aldi quite cheaply.

Powdered Milk

Powdered milk isn't particularly pleasant on its own, but in an emergency situation, is a great source of calcium. I have posted some ways to use powdered milk previously on my blog here: http://denleydiaries.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-to-do-with-powdered-milk.html. You can disguise the taste by adding drinking chocolate or Milo or any other flavour. My bread maker recipes call for powdered milk, so I always have some in my pantry cupboard.

If you don't wish to store so much powdered milk, store alternatives such as evaporated milk, coconut milk, even sweetened condensed milk (probably not for drinking though). There are alternatives out there such as rice milk as well.

A Cookbook for Kids

I work as a music teacher, and from 3:30pm it is mayhem at my place. Well, perhaps not mayhem as my kids are generally in a routine, but I work all the way until 7pm so I really need to sort out dinner during the day.

I enlisted the help of my son. It takes a little bit of time and patience to teach kids to learn how to cook, and there's no way I feel we're even getting close here, but I have taught my son some kitchen skills, and wrote him out his own cook book. I try once a week to let him cook dinner (or finish it off, as is sometimes the case). The recipes are very simple, some adult preparation may be needed beforehand, and anytime something needs to be baked, it is put into a cold oven, then the oven is switched on once the door is closed.

Some of the dishes are not main meals in themselves (one is a cake!) and often require side dishes of vegetables or salad, but they are a confidence booster and a welcome relief when it comes to dinner time.

Unfortunately these blog sites don't allow for PDF documents, otherwise I would happily upload the entire book.

PETE Rice Storage

I bought a big 10kg bag of Calrose Rice cheaply, and thought I would break it down into a more usable storage size. I have decantered some into jars to keep in my pantry for shorter term storage, but for longer term (up to 5 years), I wanted to store some in PETE bottles.

I chose some former 2 litre juice bottles, bleach rinsed them, dried them and they were ready to fill.

I use a funnel to tip the rice into the PETE bottles. It means fewer grains of rice on the benchtop.

I put in two oxygen absorbers in the bottom of the bottle, as I'm not sure how old my oxygen absorbers actually are.

Fill all the way up to the top of the bottle.

I added a third oxygen absorber at the top. Put the lid on and seal it with some flexible duct tape. This will avoid the bottle being accidentally opened, or any unwanted oxygen seeping in.

Don't forget to label your bottle.

Oxygen absorbers supposedly have a shelf life of 1 year. Of course, once they have done their job there is no need to open your containers and add more. However, if you do need to re-seal your food for any reason, you will need to use new oxygen absorbers. Throw out the used ones.

You can tell the oxygen absorbers work if you are using e.g. 1.25 litre lemonade PETE bottles as the side pulls in. It won't pull in as much with the thicker plastic used for juice bottles.