As some of you might already have understood, from my work on the property and the rental property, I am generally speaking a rather incompetent individual. Sure, I know some very few things rather well, but in most respects I am at best rather incompetent. With the risk of sounding a bit geeky; if I was a D&D character I’de be a Bard for sure; a jack of all trades, but master of none! However, with the ego of a genious (and a wife who expects me to know and do everything) I am not afraid to attempt anything, and to some extent I do… I build, modify and fix things, with varying results of course.
My latest venture was to build …. (well; my wife’s latest venture, was to have me build) houses for rabbits. Yes, not only do we plan to have hens in our garden; we also plan to have rabbits. Naturally we could have just purchased some rabbits’ houses online, but those they sell are expensive, small and not very robust. And we really don’t want to do it that way; the more we do and can do ourselves the better. The best way to become truly free is to spend the money on tools and materials instead – and to (when you can) make things that you can fix yourself if they break.
Building;
So I spent three half days buying materials for and building these two rather large (2,4 metres long) rabbits’ houses. They are, as you can see, crude and primitive, they don’t look very good, but they are heavy and robust, and – after I have added some floor tiles (for ease of cleaning) – ready to house probably 4-8 rabbits in all. We also have a movable fence of some sort, that we will move about on the lawn during the day, and have the rabbits assist me in keeping the grass down.
The rabbit houses;
The rabbits will be a good extra source of protein for us, but we will of course also use the fur, meaning we will have the opportunity to even make clothes ourselves, if the rest of the world goes down the drain – which it probably will soon. Many of the clothes in the Forebears movie (see trailer here) are in fact made by my wife from (purchased) rabbit pelts.
Just like the chicken industry, the rabbit industry is horrible; the rabbits are treated terribly and live their lives in their own extrements in tiny cages. We don’t want to contribute to this, and at the same time we want to become as independent as we can. We revolt by raising our own rabbits, on our rental (and later our own) property, where we have plenty of space and grass for a horde of rabbits. A growing population of rabbits will be kept down by a hungry family, and possibly also via trade with locals, who perhaps produce what we don’t. If they become too many we can always release them into the wild (to be eaten by hawks) (the rabbits, that is, not the locals…).
It doesn’t matter if the houses I built are not perfect! It doesn’t matter if what I do is sub standard; I learn a lot from doing things I don’t know well, and after some time living like this I might even become at least a bit competent in a range of fields. All you need to become truly free is some fearlessness and a good «work spirit» (and I guess it helps to have a wife pushing you). The worst you can do is to end up learning something, and that might not be such a bad thing in itself.
Our rabbits will have plenty of space and a varied diet and will live good rabbit lives (all the way until I chop their heads off…), and my kids will know where the food they put into their mouths come from.
HailaR WôðanaR!
