Well, as much as I hate to admit it, and since right now I can only see clearly out of one eye due to the hay allergy, the house rabbit experiment has failed. Not because of the rabbits themselves…but because of the hay issue. Whatever is done to the small animal timothy hay is costing me too much. I had another allergic reaction, a much smaller one, this past week. Which means I took allergy pills that knocked me out all day…and then kept me off-balance the rest of the week-end. It’s not as if I haven’t developed the habit of taking an allergy pill every morning either—because as much as I hate it, I have been. I switched allergy pills after a trip to the store this week-end—but these ones make me feel bad in a totally different way.
Personal baggage alert: in order to be able to enter the building for SBC operator services in Ft Smith, AR, I had to take high doses of allergy pills…I was not the only one…it was an on-going epidemic back then (late 90s) … so I hate allergy pills unless absolutely needed… and feeling the need to pop a pill every day single just to stay even and not feel so terrible…needing to pop a pill just ticks me off on too many levels. I have worked so very hard to make sure I use nothing but herbs and natural healing methods…and now I have to pop a pill every morning again.
Then again, since my one eye is nearly swollen shut from the hay allergy…with little pockets of …it’s not hives around my eye or else the allergy pills would have taken care of it…but there are small pockets of fluid around my eye –as of last night…so…despite my best efforts and my strong desire to make sure the buns had really good homes to go to before we got rid of them…I don’t necessarily think that is going to happen at the moment. At this point, it may become I have to dump them at the rabbit rescue as fast as I can…and be done w it…which really kills me.
I have issues w people who get pets and then find out they don’t work and dump them off on other people, or dump them off on the rescue agencies…we have one friend whose daughter just got her own place…the daughter has had seven puppies in the past year…and just got a new one…and no, she does not have seven or eight dogs; she only has one at a time. I hate feeling as if I am that type of person, even though I am trying so hard to get through this allergy…even though I wanted to make sure the buns go to good homes…even though I don’t want to feel as if I am throwing them out in the cold and turning my back on them…which is how I feel at the moment…but in the end, it still comes down to my health is very compromised at the moment due to the whole hay issue…so I cannot continue along this path. Plus, I have to have a rapid solution.
House Rabbit Rescue is already over-run w all the buns they’ve been saving from breeders and other sources lately—I hate to add to that problem…but at this point, I really do not have a choice. Not to mention, as much as I like to joke about Simon being called Dinner now—they live in the house—they are pets—they are not food…so having them become meat bunnies is not a viable option.
Worse yet, I think if we could move them outside…my allergies would be ok…but it’s summer…and we have no place to put them …no place where they’d be protected from predators, the heat and the sun, or even other rabbits at this point…because our backyard is riddled w wild rabbits…they don’t even try to hide the entrances to their den under the shed anymore…domestic rabbit poop does not frighten off wild rabbits…no matter how much we try…
So, if you want two adorable neutered 7 mo boy angora buns…with cages…and fences…and food and hay and toys and cardboard boxes and feeders and waterers and everything else…email me asap…I just want them to go to a good home...
Next time I do bunnies, they will be outside buns…unless I find a solution to the hay issue…and if I don’t and it is not just something with this small animal timothy hay…then my whole plan for my future is toast and I have to find something else to do w the rest of my life… because all of a sudden, the future looks dreadfully empty …. Let’s see if I can save these two first; then we’ll move on as we can.
our boys before puberty hit...bunny spooning is so cute
Yesterday was a massive day for me. I had such a good morning, writing. Then, we went home to take care of the rabbits.
Now, on Mother’s Day, the boys did escape their enclosure. We have them in their condo w an attached play yard in our kitchen/dining room. As best as we can tell, they either slipped through the roof of the condo, which had no way to fasten it closed—although it sure does now—or they pulled the bottom of the gate door open, since we normally only closed the top lock and not the bottom lock, and slid through that.
Note from today: they definitely came out the top of the condo. When we get to the house, the first thing we normally do is open the top of the condo. It’s easier to clean the cage, refill the food dish, pet the bunnies. Today, it took Simon, the supposed good bunny, took all of twenty seconds to see where I was before leaping right out of the condo onto the floor. He’s not too hard to catch, thankfully. He wanted to get to his brother—and to find out what E was up to (she was cleaning).
Mother’s Day. R walks into the house first and yells, ‘hi boys!’, which is normally what I holler the second we open the front door, so they know who it is since they can’t see the front door. Well, they could see the front door Sunday. They were sitting at the back door, the sliding glass door, in the box where my Mother’s Day plants were sitting waiting for me to come plant them. We’d gotten the plants the day before at the local farmer’s market store and I had set them on the floor in front of the window so they could get enough light until I planted them. Simon took off as soon as he heard R’s voice. Charley, sitting in the middle of the plants, sort of looked up as if to say, ‘huh? What?’ So, the boys pretty much decimated my plants. They seem to love the chocolate mint…there was very little of it left. Next they hit the spearmint. Both of those were nearly bitten off at the dirt. The peppermint was also eaten, but there were more of them left than the spearmint. It does seem as if no one was really interested in the catnip. Or maybe they are picky eaters, only able to eat one thing at a time, needing to eat all of that one thing before moving on to the next.
Following the ‘bunny trail’, it seems the boys were not out for that long (thank goodness). They did spend some time on the couch. They seem to have liked both my bedroom and my bathroom—my room is at the farthest end of the hall. There was no trace found in either child’s room—or in their bathroom. And I am so so thankful that for some weird reason on Saturday I made sure the door to the basement, which is in the dining room, was firmly shut when we left. Usually we leave that open. I am sure our rabbits would have been lost and/or dead (from chewing on something) before we found them if they had had access to the basement. The little rascals went all over my bedroom…you can see where they came in the door, went along one side of the bed, and then the other. Then into the bathroom.
We clipped the top of the condo shut w D clips. We made sure the yard gate was firmly locked at the top and the bottom. I spent the night worrying about the backlash from all that mint on unready baby bunny tummies.
We walked in on Monday to find you could at once know there were bunnies in the house. It’s the first time I’ve opened the front door and gone ‘woof! Bunnies…’ I figured it had more to do w all the mint they’d eaten the day before. There was a lot of territory marking, which we do get now and then, although this was much more noticeable and the urine was darker. Again, I figured, mint backlash, coupled w now being ticked at being shut back in the cage and yard, rather than having full range of the house. Simon was cranky. Cranky cranky. Cranky teen-aged bunnies—are nippers.
So we clean everything up Monday, We pick on the bunnies. There is some minor grooming needed and done. When it gets to be major grooming, I need R’s help. Neither of us expected that he would be such an integral part of taking care of bunnies, but he is. I am glad for his help, and thankful for it.
Other than Simon being snottier than usual, and his behavior has steadily been moving towards the snothead division for weeks now--I do pay attention, the boys were both business as usual. Nothing really out of the ordinary. It really didn’t stop that feeling of something was coming that had been eating away at me for the past day or two. I didn’t really think it had anything to do w the rabbits. I was having a different sort of issue personally (I’d prefer not to talk about it right now, thanks) …and a storm was coming. As in a huge thunderstorm. It hit last night and the dog spent the night going from the closet to under the bed, the thunder shook the house so bad.
We walk in to the house yesterday…and as soon as we opened the door, we could see, things in the rabbit world were not ok. There was hay and fur and poop scattered everywhere. We do not get much fur flying everywhere usually, but it’s spring and I was thinking maybe they were shedding or something. We never get that much hay and that much poop thrown outside the enclosure…nor thrown that far. Plus, despite all my airing out and incense and air freshener, the smell of rabbit was worse.
I look at the rabbits. They are doing their snuggling spooning thing, but they are both…off. They are uneasy, more huffy than usual. My first thought was…was it noises that bothered them? There are always ambulances or fire engines or police sirens wailing at all hours. Was it neighbors? Our next door neighbors can get into some loud altercations. Was it someone breaking into the house? Hey, it could happen. I am not that difficult to track most of the time. Plus, when we are here lately, nine times out of ten we drove, so if there’s no vehicle here, it’s not a big stretch to think no one is home. Even with the lights on timers going on and off. I picked Charley up, because he is the one who has more appreciation for me picking him up to snuggle lately. He was … Charley. He had a few mats in his fur that weren’t there the day before, but nothing really unusual. I set him down on top the box in the play yard and I walked away. About the time I left the room, Charley was back in the condo and he and Simon were going at it, fighting.
Talk about a freak out. I have E standing there, scared and nearly in tears because she doesn’t understand what is going on. I have two rabbits trying to kill each other that have moved to the bottom of the cage to the back corner where I cannot reach them. I have no qualms about stepping in between two dogs tearing each other up; rabbits don’t scare me. I was more afraid of the damage they would do to one another. As soon as they moved to a place where I could get them—it only took a few seconds, but it sure felt like forever—I grabbed Charley. Charley may be my nipper, but he doesn’t nip out of anger or irritation, unless we’re grooming him and he’s had enough. Charley is what I call an investigative nipper, like a puppy, or a baby, mouthing things. Simon, however, for the last few weeks, has been doing a more dominant form of biting. As in, your hand in my cage, nip. Not hard. Just enough to get your attention.
We locked Simon in the condo, since it was the easier thing to do. Charley we left out in the enclosed yard. We made sure he had food and water. We cleaned everything up as best as we could. I emailed the vet, since I wasn’t expecting rabbit puberty to hit until next month. Then we popped into the truck and ran over to petco. I prefer petsmart, and if petco had not had anything useful, we would have gone to petsmart, but it’s farther away and I don’t like to drive under the best of conditions, much less when my little baby bunnies are trying to kill each other. Lucky for us, petco was just fine. I had done enough research before we got the boys and before I bought the condo that I had basic prices in my head. I knew what I wanted. I just had to find it.
We bought the biggest small animal cage we could find. I bought yet another litter box—which turned out to be a good thing today, since we needed one in the play yard. I bought some treats, some orchard grass, little things to make them happy in their separate cages. I feel so bad for Charley. His cage is so small compared to what he is used to.
Both rabbits look awful. I think I did Charley a disservice by keeping his fur so short. I did find some sores on his back from the fighting. I didn’t even try to groom either rabbit yesterday. After what they’d been through, I figured a day of peace should come before I pulled out the grooming rakes and combs and scissors. Simon is …a mess. I am thinking cutting his fur back would be a good idea too. At least until after we get him fixed. He’s full of mats and grass and everything else. He does look somewhat better today, but he still needs a bunch of work. With his temperament today though, I am not touching him today. Charley I am planning to work on after he’s been in the exercise yard for a bit. I set up the play yard, separate from the condo, so that Charley has plenty of room to roam and to play and to be Charley. Simon is sitting where he can see everything. I have seen him charge the side of his cage at least once, and he keeps chuffing his annoyance at not being able to get to his brother.
E is really sad. It took me hours yesterday to get across to her the buns do not hate one another. This is just a chemical and hormonal process. They cannot stop themselves. It’s just normal bunny behavior. We got into glands and puberty..and what will happen to her and to her brother when they reach puberty, She was honestly concerned for a moment that her hormones would make her fight with her brother, like Charley and Simon. What I wanted to say was hormones weren’t going to make her any nicer to her brother and they aren’t what makes her so mean to her brother now. But I couldn’t say it to her. She was so genuinely concerned. She does love her brother, but only when he’s not touching her stuff, or taking my attention away from her. Now she just wants to take them to the vet and get them fixed so everything can be ok again.
Now, with Charley in his own place, we learned a few things. Charley, our beloved evil twin with his messy fur, is actually the neat bunny. Yes, he made a mess, but nothing big. He did not dig through and toss his food all over. He did not dig through the hay and toss it everywhere. He did not poop all over the place. He used his litterbox to pee in fine. Yes, I was worried he’d pee everywhere and poop everywhere and then sit in it overnight.
Simon, with two floors at his disposal, had food everywhere. He had hay everywhere. He had re-arranged everything. Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s how we usually find everything. Now we know for sure which one does what.
We also found out we can start feeding them strange things a bit more often now. Just a tiny bit at a time. I brought bananas today. We’ll have to see how that goes.
This is a post I have been meaning to write for approximately a month now.
When I first began to plan this post, Shadow was alive, but ill, and I was pondering the validity of writing a post about caring for your aging pet. Since R and I frequently joked about the dog we would get to replace Shadow once he passed, I also pondered writing a post about picking out a new puppy, or a new pet.
It’s also about the time we were waiting for our bunnies to be old enough to come home to us, so, again, the picking out a new pet theme seemed a good idea.
But Shadow was sick. I do have a post I could not publish, still cannot publish, a post that wandered through the intricacies of how do you know when to let go of your pet, when is it the right time to say good-bye and put your friend and family member to sleep. I strongly believe in euthanasia, for animals and for humans. I have worked w the elderly and the infirm too long, doing in-home care and working in nursing homes, to not believe in it for humans. Deciding where that right point is, however, is a huge decision, no matter what species you look at for this event.
Honestly, I cannot tell you where this post is going this morning. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss Shadow here. I know he is in a much better place. I know he is happier and free from pain. I know the poor old guy finally has his dignity back. I can still wake up in the morning w the urgency that I have to get up and let him outside, since he was too infirm to walk up and down the basement stairs to the dog door, much less able to climb up the stairs to outside.
I still drive up to the house, when we take both Kendall and Princess to my house for the day, expecting to hear him bark, or expecting to try to open the front door and being unable to do so until he moves his great big fluffy butt since he spent the day sleeping in front of the door until we came back. I keep worrying about did he take his meds, did he eat enough…things the poor guy no longer needs to worry about these days.
I look at Princess, who is ten, eleven years old. I know her issues, just as I knew Shadow’s. These dogs have been in my life for ten years plus now. They’ve been friends and protectors and guardians and test subjects. I took a canine/feline massage therapy course just for Shadow during the year I was in massage therapy school. During my confinement while I was pregnant w N, when I was unable and unwilling to go to school to perform hands on massages on people, so my instructor let me practice at home…on the dogs. These dogs are the reason, for the most part, that I was able to graduate from massage school. If I hadn’t finished before I had N, I never would have.
So, since I started out here, let’s look at Kendall and Princess after Shadow’s passing.
Poor R was very upset that once Shadow did pass Princess would not go near the body. I cannot say that I blame her. Princess’s job for so long was to watch after and take care of the old man. As soon as he passed, a huge burden lifted off of her shoulders. You could see it in her whole body. She had been released. A year earlier, R’s ex-girlfriend had taken away the third dog in what had been a consistent live-in arrangement. Princess had been crushed. She had mourned. She had sat at the door, or at the window, staring out, waiting for her third pack mate to return. There are a great many internal human issues at work here…most revolve around the lack of communication from the ex, and her inability to think of anyone other than herself. She did not take the dog when they broke up. She waited a few weeks, then burst into the house, screaming about wanting to take back everything that belonged to her. The dog was among these items; there had never been any conversation during the years the dog had lived w R about specifics as to whom Taylor belonged, despite the fact that he was listed as R’s at the vet, his collar had R’s information, and his ID chip had R’s information. That passing Princess mourned. Princess did not mourn for Shadow. She rejoiced. Not only was she free from her guilt about being unable to do anything for him, she knew he was better off and was happier. Her attitude is the one I prefer to emulate.
Princess spent the three days after Shadow’s passing grinning like a maniac, as happy as a puppy, getting used to her role as queen of the domain again. She even took over some of Shadow’s old duties. Like walking behind my son and hoovering up anything he dropped, or slightly knocking N’s tv tray to see if she could knock some more food off the edges.
How Princess got over Taylor’s leaving was w Kendall. Princess and Kendall really hit it off, much more than R or I could have foreseen actually. Princess was always a bit disgruntled and miffed about Kendall. Ken turns two next month. She is a big fluffy goofy Pest, capital P. She thinks everyone in the world is here to pet her and to play w her. Princess has been Ken’s hero since the moment they met. Ken has practiced her Princess bark from the moment Ken first heard it. Ken is a border collie mix. Princess is a German shepherd/chow mix. Ken has a high pitched yippy yuppie bark. Princess has a deep full-throated growly I will eat you alive bark. Ken pretends to have Princess’s bark…she’s finally starting to get good at it. Ken is one of the creatures that honestly cannot and will not take no for an answer, until she gets rolled across the yard. It took a bit, but now she and Princess will play like puppies, romping and wrestling through the grass, playing chase, finding icky stinky things to roll in together.
Ken is the one who was visibly upset when Shadow passed. In the weeks before he passed, Ken had been helping Princess take care of him. She would lie next to him. She would keep an eye on him. She would try to get him to play. She would do her I’m the puppy here suck up thing that she does. When Kendall starting to lay down close enough to Shadow to touch him, I knew the end was coming. Ken is a fruit loop, but she is a very sensitive fruit loop. Kendall has hopes of being a familiar one day; she is that sensitive. She’s too fruit loopy though. She is not keyed onto humans, the way Princess is. Kendall is keyed onto dogs. She came that way. We come home and both dogs are outside, rest assured Princess will make a beeline for her humans to love on them. Kendall may not even notice anyone is home if she’s playing tag w the dog next door. Although once she notices humans are home, she is all over them to get petted and to be loved. It’s not the same thing.
Kendall didn’t know what to do w herself the night Shadow passed. She walked the house, lost, for a couple days afterwards. She wasn’t really sure what was happening. You could tell by the look on her face. She would sit and whine, then run outside and walk all over the place, sniffing and wandering. She’d come back in, pace the house. She was looking for Shadow. She’d sit at the window and stare out, whimpering in her annoyingly subsonic way that drives me to the brink of wanting a good stiff drink or three. After about three days, she started to do what Princess was doing. That first week after his passing, those dogs rough-housed and wrestled and rolled more than they had in the months before his passing. No small feat w Kendall the energizer bunny dog as a partner.
Now, it’s business as usual here w the dogs. They were off their feed for a couple days. Then, no issues there. Although I think everyone is waiting for that time when the last of the food bought w Shadow’s infirmities in mind is all done…and we can go on to the low protein diet that Princess and her aging liver now require.
Now here we are. Two dogs living in one house. Two rabbits living in another house. Not to mention a fish tank full of fish, most of whom I do not really think ought to be living together.
We’ll discuss the rabbits first.
I do not think I shall ever have angora rabbits again. If it were just Simon, my silver grey bun, I would be saying something completely different. He’s beautiful. I could show this guy in rabbit shows and have no issues or worries about him not winning. He is gorgeous. But my reddish-brown guy, Charley, I swear he can sit still and become matted somehow. I know I need to be able to get to his chest and groom him more…for some reason he has taken to loving to mat up his chest fur of late. That’s not good since he hates to have his chest messed w, not that I blame him for that.
I love rabbits. Rabbits are like…fairies. It really is the best analogy I can come up w. They are so not anything like dogs. They are very mildly like cats. Rabbits are like rabbits. They like to get into things, just because they can. They like to take things apart, just because they can. They do not immediately run over and try the new bit of lettuce I hold out to them -- for the first time, I did this yesterday…neither bun was impressed…although hold out a piece of Hawaiian bread, and they may both take off your hand getting to it. I will definitely have rabbits again, once these ones pass on, but I don’t think I want angoras again.
Now, I did know angoras require grooming, as well as a slightly different diet than other non-wool producing buns, well before I got them. Talk about a strange way to decide you want a pet. I got a spinning wheel for my birthday…and sheep or goats…well, they are not backyard in the city friendly. The animals themselves are fine with it…it’s the city that has problems. A rabbit seemed a nice middle ground. Something I can keep in the house, something that will be a pet, and something that will shed out a magnificent fur that can be spun into the warmest fluffiest of yarns. Never mind that I knew going in that spinning angora is not a good experience for a beginning spinner. Once I started going, I was more interested in rabbits as pets.
The majority of the literature available is not necessarily for house rabbits. The majority of literature is about keeping rabbits to show and/or to eat. Although I can see how this is a good idea, that is not where I am at the moment. Later on, maybe, but not right now. Finding information about actual angoras also proved difficult. I am lucky. I have a breeder locally that will answer all my questions. Right now, my question is…are my bunnies insane, defective, or brain damaged? Seriously. I am good on checking for wet poop. I am good on cage cleaning. Rabbits are messy messy messy…but I am not as upset over dumb bunnies throwing food and poop all over the place, although I am perturbed by the peeing over the edge of the cage now and then…but it’s not a big thing, since it is infrequent. I thought rabbits were supposed to be cleaner than these guys…or rather, cleaner than Charley. He’s the usual suspect. I am good on their diet and on treating them like newborn human babies when introducing new foods. To date, new foods include the tiny bits of red lettuce yesterday that immediately were knocked aside and ignored and Hawaiian sweet rolls, which were an amazingly big hit the moment either bun first smelled what I held between my fingers for them. I am lucky to still have all my fingers after that. Grooming them is still touch and go, only because I am still trying to make them realize I am going to be brushing and combing them whether they like it or not and one of these days clipping their god awful toenails that are like little kitten claws in their razor sharpness. We are getting there though. Simon is still easier to groom though. If he were a female, I’d say Simon were the Queen. Even though Charley crawls all over him all the time. They both do it to one another.
Bonded rabbits, like our boys, spoon together. They play chase. The boys have discovered the toys we have for them. They especially like the plastic balls. These are hard plastic baseballs, the kind that are hollow and full of holes. The rabbits love picking them up and tossing them, then chasing after them and doing it again. I am waiting to figure out how to toss the ball to one another and start playing catch. Rabbits are very intelligent and snobby too. They are not afraid to crawl all over you, yank your hair, yank you jeans, nip your neck, curl up and sit on your lap and clean themselves a bit, then dive off as if cliff diving before streaking up into their cage to try to climb over the top edge of the cage when the upper door is open, and just as suddenly turn and race back down to hide from you as if you poked them w a cattle prod.
Rabbits are strange. I like that. I am joking when I say they are crazy, or brain damaged or defective. They are sweet and loving and utterly bonkers. I continue to maintain that had I known how very cool rabbits were, I would not have had cats for the past twenty plus years.
Which brings us to cats. I used to love cats. I’ve had cats all my life. Then I had a male that sprayed, even after he was fixed. In a tiny apartment. We lived w two cats at first, then three. I spent more time cleaning out the litter boxes, in an apartment that barely had room for one litter box, than I did cooking for my child. I think that was when it started, the whole, I am so sick and tired of cats thing. We had two other cats before I took the sprayer, who happened to be my favorite and beloved lap warmer, to a new home. Those two cats we brought w us when we moved, across country. From WV to IL. Yeah, my tolerance was fast evaporating. Both cats were climbers. I lost one too many Mother Mary statues to kitty cat high jinks. They were very much my daughter’s cats though. I was already starting to let the cats go in and out of the house, trying to convince them they could live outside and I’d still take care of them. I just would not keep a litter box in the house. Then we got Kendall. She was an extremely sick puppy, we came to find out very quickly. We adopted her from a local shelter during one of their adoption events at the local Petsmart. It was love at first sight so badly that N and I saw her first, but I couldn’t get her w N, because he was still in cling mode back then. I took him back to his dad’s, picked up E, and went back. She made a beeline for Ken, so it was sort of destiny that we got her, even though I still like to tease I wanted the German shepherd mix in the pen w Ken. It was always Kenny, from the moment I first saw her. She was twelve pounds and she should have been closer to twenty-five or thirty. The shelter woman told me she ‘might have a slight cough’ since all the dogs at the shelter had just been given their bordetella vaccines. What Ken actually had was a major infection that nearly killed her. I still tease her and say the fever she had caused brain damage.
Once Kendall was feeling good enough to run around, the cats, who were nearly her size at first, made good friends for her in her mind, or rather made good chew toys. Kendall can be a bit of a bully. She has no issues using her size to her advantage. As she rapidly put on weight and more than doubled her original twelve pounds, the cats were not thrilled. Spooky did his best to stay out of her way. She’d come towards him, he would not run, always. Usually he’d get up, saunter away, then jump onto something too high for Ken to reach. Pumpkin was not so smart. Pumpkin, the cat that nearly took out Ken’s eye when she was still sick because she was trying to sniff him and figure out what he was. Pumpkin liked to play. If Ken hadn’t been so rough, they might have actually gotten along and been really good friends. As it was, Pumpkin began to develop really nasty sores on his neck from Ken grabbing him and dragging him around. She wasn’t being mean. She was only playing. I put the cats outside for good after that, after doctoring Pumpkin’s neck as well as we could. I made sure they were fed, had a warm dry place to sleep. I know what happened to them. We could have been happy w that arrangement for years, if we hadn’t lived near such nasty people.
Of course, we did inherit a conure parrot, after the cats were outside. I know we did well by the bird, but we are not bird people. I might have to spray things down daily w the rabbits, but at least I am not scraping poop off the wall…and their poop, to date, does not strip paint off of anything. Birds are very messy. Birds can be very loud. Birds can learn to speak and when they are around, uhm, not quite gentile people, they can develop the kind of vocabulary that makes sailors not just blush, but wince and duck their heads. That’s the bird we inherited. That bird now has a really good and very interactive home w some friends of ours. We get to visit her whenever we want. She’s doing quite well. I am happy for her.
We have fish. I am a fish person. I don’t know why. Oh, now that is just a blatant lie there. I remember being very young and my dad and I keeping a tank full of black mollies in my room … they were my fish. My dad has always kept fish. My grandfather literally had a full wall covered by ten gallon tanks full of fish. Dad says that was his scaled down version of his guppy enterprises. Pappap raised guppies. Dad prefers to raise mollies. My thing is angel fish…and for awhile tiger barbs, but not in the same tank.
I found a great deal on a forty gallon tank, top and stand. It is a tall tank, as opposed to a long tank. Tall tanks are good for angels. I still do not have any angel fish. I probably won’t be getting them for awhile. My dad has a forty, forty five gallon tall tank. He also got a very good deal on his tank long ago. It is not a good tank to keep mollies in. He always has trouble keeping his mollies alive. I am beginning to think it has more to do with his collection of bottom dwellers than w the tank itself. Mollies prefer a long tank. He warned me our mollies would not do well in a tall tank. Mollies like to swim at the top to middle range of the water, so a longer tank is more beneficial for them. If I had a forty gallon long tank, theoretically the fish would have more room to swim and would be happier.
Technically, I have very few mollies left in the tank. I do, however, have an overabundance of swordtails. Swords are like mollies, but different. Swords also like to jump out of the tank when they get the chance. To date, none of our swords have done that. Yet. Knock on wood. We bought two pregnant swordtails. They gave birth and died. Now we have about a hundred little swords swimming around. One molly left, our little Dalmatian girl. She keeps getting pregnant. Sometimes her babies even survive. We have about two of them that I can tell are hers right now. I am interested in who the father of this last batch could be..since all the male mollies are history.
Now, we also have guppies. Four females and two males. All the girls are pregnant. The mollies do not mess with the guppies. I was certain they would. I guess Wendy (short for Wendell), our crown tail betta, seems to have everyone trained. No nipping the slow pretty fish. Wendy happens to be the biggest, fattest betta I have ever seen or kept. Once we dropped him into the forty gallon tank, he took on the persona of Jaws. He slides through that water like a tank. No one messes w him. No one even looks at him. When he comes up to eat, no one bothers him. I thought for sure he was going to be a goner.
The swords and mollies used to be in a ten gallon tank together. Wendy was in the five gallon tank, w a couple albino corey cats. Wendy was never that big nor that active in his five gallon tank.
We also have two botia, to keep the snails at bay. They are doing a great job at that, but I worry about what will happen once there are no more snails for them to attack. Botia eat other fish. We have two types of live bearers. We may have kissed our new babies good-bye in order to get rid of the snail problem. We used to have botia in another tank, before we left WV. It didn’t matter what sort of fish we put into that tank. They ‘mysteriously’ disappeared. It took us awhile to figure out the botia were hunting and stalking the other fish. That’s why we only have two botia right now. Less to catch to return to the pet shop later.
We have six albino corey cats, because I love them. You can always see where they are. They are friendly and happy industrious little workers. Plus, they are also quite hardy.
And, of course, the plecto, George. The hidden cleaner who appears as if a ghost at the oddest of moments, striking us blatantly with his ever growing size. I know he is a necessary cleaner fish, but I hate when plectos get too big. I buy them as small as I can find them. I rarely keep them more than a year, before I take them back to the pet store and trade them in for something…smaller. I usually start with a plecto anywhere from one to three inches long…and end up with an eight to twelve inch long behemoth not even a year later.
I have a need to keep fish. For awhile there, while we were in MD and in WV, I didn’t want any fish. I didn’t want any added responsibility. Plus, we could only have a small tank. I sold my 55 gallon tank when we left for MD in 2006. Every time I looked at that tank, I thought of the farce that had been the marriage. I didn’t want to deal w it. I let it go. I am actually much happier w my forty gallon now. It is closer to what I have been wanting, a hexagonal tank that is not actually healthy for fish, although I wanted to do a coral tank, not a fish tank. The smaller the tank, the more often you need to clean it, and the more thorough a cleaning you need to do. With the 55 gallon, I could do a 10% water change every week or every other week and be fine. With the 5 gallon, I was scrubbing algae, changing 20-25% of the water weekly, plus having to change out the filters at least weekly. We had a betta and some corey cats in the 5 gallon. It wasn’t as if I had goldfish or something – goldfish are horribly nasty creatures when it comes to cleaning up after them. I don’t do goldfish. I don’t like them. I never have.
With my forty gallon, I do a 5-10% water change every couple weeks. Since I changed up the filtration system, I rinse one part of it every week, so that after three weeks, everything has been rinsed and it’s time to start over again. Plus, we have guppies and mollies. You don’t want the water pristinely clear since these fish tend to prefer slightly murky mucky waters. I refuse to let it get too nasty, but I don’t get upset when the water is a little cloudy. Live bearers also need a bit of salt in the water to help them carry and release the young. Right now, we have mostly plastic plants, but I prefer natural plants. When we moved, it was winter. The chill killed off most of our plants, aquatic and otherwise. We have a few plants still thriving in the forty gallon tank. They are really starting to make a come-back these past few weeks. When we first got the tank, however, there wasn’t enough cover for everyone. Especially not with so many pregnant females. I caved and bought plastic plants to ensure the babies and the mothers had plenty of places to hide. It seems to have worked. We have brooded youngsters swimming around healthy and alive these days. I’m waiting to see how the guppies do.
Since my dad told me mollies don’t do well in tall tanks, I’ve been waiting for the mollies to die out. It’s not happening. My fish are happy and healthy. When I bought the guppies for my daughter, who has wanted guppies for years because her Auntie loves guppies and she wants to be like her Auntie, I was admitting my defeat…and accepting the knowledge that at some point I will have to buy myself a second tank … not for the first time in my life either… so that I can have a certain type of fish in one tank and a certain type of other fish in another tank. I keep my eyes open for another tall tank on sale whenever we go out.
Which brings me here…we are all waiting for the day when we buy the bigger house, when we have the farm land, when we can have live stock, and a bellows in a shed, and a potting wheel in another shed…when we can have a flock of egg layers, a herd of milk producers and fiber givers, when we can really start to let our hair down and explore breeding options with a variety of species, including keeping and stocking our own pond. I am quite looking forward to that.
First, I only worked this morning. I’ve been doing that a lot more lately. Only working in the mornings. The rest of the day is for the family and for my other work…like writing and knitting.
At lunch, we went to the local farmer’s market. It’s just a little store up the road. I wish I could tell you the name. It’s bigger than a fruit stand. It’s an actual store front. But…it’s still a small place. There’s no name on either receipt I got today. When I do find out the name, I will let you know.
Last time we went to Global Foods in Kirkwood (this past week-end), I bought black rice and red rice, to try them out. I decided we were having dinner at my house, which is normal on Tuesdays when R has to leave early to bowl. Speaking of, tonight is the last night of this season. Next season, E and I are going w him when he bowls. It’s so silly that we are both excited about going, even though it’s a league and we won’t be bowling.
Again w the anyway…
The market had all sorts of flowers and herbs and flowery bushes and hanging baskets for sale in their parking lot. They’d set up a little tent in the side lot. E and I, of course, went to town. We bought 12 strawberry plants for under $4. Can you believe it? We also got cantaloupe plants. Three types of basil. (My weakness.) Lavender. Sage. My experimental plant this time is stevia. We’ll see how we get along. A tarragon plant. Spinach. Now I need to go buy more pots and more dirt. I got most of everything planted this afternoon, but not everything.
E bought a gerbera plant. I agreed to buy it because it’s an oddity. You can see where two stems grew together as one. At the head is two flowers, two full flowers, growing out of the same stem. I’ll have to take a picture of it tomorrow. My camera is at R’s right now…even though I had a feeling I’d need it today.
Then we went inside the actual store. Zucchini. Bananas. Tomatoes. Raw local honey (my allergies are killing me…I have found out that I can eat raw unpasteurized honey w no issues…I was hoping local honey would help w my allergies. This honey says ‘raw’, but it has been pasteurized, even though it doesn’t say so. The second it hit my tongue, my body threw its normal this is too much glucose at one time fit…so…I cook w it and I bake w it and I let E eat it by the spoonful…but I can’t eat it as it is.) We came out of there w a ton of fresh veg. I was so happy.
We came home. There was rabbit duty first.
On a normal day, we come in. E sweeps the floor. I clean the cage, fill up the feeders, replenish the hay, feel up the bunnies, make sure there isn’t anything icky in their fur. I check the water bottles, fill those that need it. Today was the big weekly clean up. It’s the first big cleaning I’ve done since letting them have 24/7 access to the run area. Want to freak a rabbit out? One that is used to roaming at least freely in his own yard? Lock him in his cage/house. Silly rabbits followed me from inside their cage wherever I went. I moved the cage this way and that, to be sure I swept ever little everything out from under the cage (no small feat that). Point of fact…bunnies are very nosy creatures. I emptied out the internal litter boxes. I emptied out the tray under the cage. I cleaned everything up. I put in new litter and shredded newspaper in the tray before shoving it back under. Even though I know they will ignore me, every time I pull that tray out to empty it, I tell Goof 1 and Goof 2 not to poop til I get it back in…and to be sure they pee in a litter box (they don’t always). I can just hear those bunnies laughing at me behind my back. I swear.
The newspaper goes into the compost pile. We don’t have a real bin yet—but I am not letting that stop me. I have an extra garbage can outside that I use right now. Eventually R will catch up w me. Or not. The hay and poop and litter…they get spread out over the pots full of plants. Today, since I had planted the strawberries and cantaloupes before the cleaning, (to give E time to sweep and do her thing without me wanting to strangle her for the way she does things)I put all the litter and hay and whatnot out into the swimming pool …where we are growing certain veg.
It seemed like a really good idea to me at the time. It still does. The kids are too big—and E is too grouchy—to share the little plastic swimming pool. There were a couple holes along the sides. I punctured a few holes in the bottom for drainage, filled the pool up w dirt. Now we have strawberries, cantaloupes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and if the watermelon seeds do come up—we’ll have watermelons in there too—all growing in the swimming pool…and I don’t have to till or fight weeds and grass or anything like that.
The really good thing about rabbit poop…it keeps the squirrels out of the plants. When we got our first round of herbs from El-Mel’s, a squirrel kept trying to dig in my chocolate mint planter. I guess because it is lower to the ground than the others. The second I dumped some used litter and rabbit poop in there, the squirrel decided to go elsewhere. It’s not as if I don’t throw food for them out farther across the yard anyway. Not that these fat things are starving, by any means. This whole neighborhood is surrounded by pin oak trees (in case you ever wonder what I might be allergic to! Which is sort of funny…all the years I’ve lived in and around here, these trees never really bothered me much…this year…they be kicking my butt constantly…).
So, I got the bunnies all clean and cozy and fed, and bothered as I stroked and petted them and pulled out whatever hay or whatnot needed to come out of their pesky fur. Then, I washed my hands before I made a salad.
There is nothing better than a fresh salad. I totally forgot the broccoli though. It’ll be good for a few days. It’s not a loss. I drive R nuts w what I do when I get going cooking anyway. There was more than enough food.
First, I started the black rice in the rice cooker. Now, the rice package came with zero instructions at all. What I read online was somewhat misleading, since I check several sources before deciding what to do. I decided to treat black rice (which cooks up purple, btw) the same way I do brown rice. Now, I had the black rice soaking in water overnight…since it is always better to pre-soak rice before cooking…read ‘Nourishing Traditions’ by Sally Fallon for how and why and so forth…. I wasn’t sure how much water to add…so I normally err on the side of too much water…because too much water means rice pudding, which E loves. I think I added too much water. Most sources agree that black rice takes longer to cook…I think that is wrong. I think it takes about as much time to cook as brown rice…this is my experience after cooking it once. It needs roughly as much water as brown rice, with roughly the same cooking time as brown rice. What I made tonight was somewhere between cooked too long and too much water. Now, the taste is lovely. Different sources kept going on about black rice and its ‘strong nutty flavor’. To us, tastes like brown rice…only tonight, it tasted sticky…from the too much water.
Black rice, all sources agree, has more iron in it than other rice. In a household where iron is hard to get into little bodies…this is a godsend. E will eat rice. It doesn’t matter what kind. The fact that black rice is black was enough to get her to want to taste it before we cooked it, little Goth child that she is. That it cooks out into a purple…made it so much tastier to her. For the record, the kid ate two helpings of the icky sticky black rice…if she hadn’t eaten three pieces of chicken w it, she might have had room for more.
I made a terrific salad. Even E wanted a salad tonight. We are starting to reach her on the food level here. She tried tomatoes, avocado, red onions, cucumber, carrots …all on a bed of various greens (I don’t eat iceberg lettuce either…it simply has no flavor…but now that bunnies can’t have it, I don’t even bother thinking about it…) I think it’s funny. Everyone here has a different salad dressing, although E is likely to try what R has and what I have…since her dressing she always gets on the side, so she can dip her stuff into it. If she really likes the dressing, she tends to turn the salad into a soup…but as long as she eats it…I do not care.
R left for bowling. I got to clean up the kitchen. I am also still in the process of making forbidden rice pudding.
Black rice is also known as Forbidden rice … as only Emperors and their chosen few were permitted to eat it.
I checked out several rice pudding recipes, just to see what I could find. I do a mean off the cuff rice pudding for the kids…but I wanted to make sure I did it right w this rice this time.
In my cast iron pot, I dumped roughly two cups of over-saturated black rice. I added two cups of milk. Next time, I want to use half and half, or even heavy cream. With a bit of coconut milk. I set that up on a medium heat. I added a hefty tablespoon or two of vanilla (we make our own). A hefty tablespoon or two of maple syrup (no—we buy this). Ground cardamon, about a teaspoon (must be a genetic thing that I like to add this to darn near everything that I bake or cook). Roughly two teaspoons of ground ginger. Roughly two teaspoons of Chinese five spice powder. I added three beaten eggs. I started w a half cup of the raw honey I can’t eat…but I know my kids, so I added another half cup about ten minutes later after tasting it, to get the sweetness just right. Stirred everything in and combined it really well. Put the lid on it.
Now, I let it simmer, stirring frequently, for roughly (I know—everything is done roughly tonight) a half an hour. Next time…if my rice is this saturated before hand, I will cut down on the milk. I also think a heavier substance, like the half and half or the heavy cream, will really do wonders w this dish.
My rice pudding did not turn thick and creamy. When I use oversaturated rice, it doesn’t always…if I use too much milk or whatever (I’ve been known to use apple juice upon occasion). Next time, I may try some jaggery…or at least brown sugar, instead of honey. I was trying to get some of the local honey into my system. That’s why I went for the honey. My kids like things sweet, but not too sweet. That first half cup of honey darn near got lost in the taste of everything else. I let it cook on medium heat…and I stirred it. I cooked it w the lid on, for about twenty minutes. There was no thickening going on. I took the lid off…and it started to thicken somewhat. I turned the heat off at about thirty minutes or so…and I let it cool…that’s when it began to thicken up somewhat. It looks like a decent porridge at the moment…it’s still cooling. It is actually very tasty.
I simply need to learn how to work w this rice. Instead of treating it like some strange object and handling it delicately…I need to just work it the same way I work brown rice.
After this experiment, I see no reason to eat white rice again. E has been moved over to eating brown rice, thanks to R’s eating brown rice every time we go out. She’s gotten over quite a few I won’t eat that issues w him. I’m very proud. Now maybe we can work on getting more meat on those little tiny bird bones of hers.
We’ll have the red rice later this week…since I have it soaking in the fridge right now. I won’t go out of my way w the red rice. I will treat it like normal brown rice and be done w it.
This is me, in all my domestic bliss. What could be better than working in the garden? Then creating a meal w fresh vegetables…a hearty meal at that. Cooking the rice pudding was just like…gravy on the goose, my friend. Watching crazy bunnies binkie and run all over the place like maniacs. Sitting and eating w the love of my life, talking about his day and mine. Cleaning the kitchen up. Looking forward to sitting back in a few and working on my diotima sweater. I’ll be finishing that soon…and then I will start on M’s poncho…
Tonight I will curl up in the arms of the man I love and sleep the sleep…of the damned, I guess. Lol. According to those who know me…my friends and I, it seems we are all going to burn one of these days…at least we are all going down together. It’s going to be a party. Lol….
Who knew two silly little rabbits could be so…incredible?
Let’s see…in the short time they have been with us…what have I learned? The first thing is…I do not ever want to get angora rabbits again. Give me a lionhead and I’ll be happy. Something w short fur, something that can be easily groomed, without fearing of bugs setting up house in the poop encrusted fur on his butt.
Now, my boys are my babies. Roughly about two months old. They will always be my house bunnies. If they live twenty years, then woo hoo…cute obnoxious little lagomorphs for twenty years, living in my house. Uhm, no, rabbits usually do not live that long. They will probably be here for more like ten or twelve years.
I don’t think I have ever been so paranoid about having a pet before in my life. Every day…let’s look at the poop. Not that they aren’t little poop machines, because they are. There is always plenty of poop all over the place. They do, thankfully, pee in the litter boxes, but they do tend to mark here and there, now and then. They’re boys—it’s what they do. Is the poop normal? Ok, there’s mushy poop. Not wet poop. Just mushy. What does that mean? Lately it means some dumb bunny has been asleep in the litter box and smooshed poop or tossed out smooshed poop or something other than this is how the poop came out of the bunny.
Rabbits are messy. Did I tell you the conure parrot was messy? Well, the parrot is still worse than two little bunnies. Hay everywhere. We did try the toilet paper roll filled w hay. That didn’t really go over well. The empty tissue box full of hay went better, but we ended up removing a half of one side, making it more open, so they can stick their heads in and dig through things to get to the tastier bits.
Now, keep in mind, we have angora rabbits. The boys are satin angoras, the second least puffy angora there is, or so I think. I know French angoras are less puffy, and I think the satins are the next on the puffy list. So, hay everywhere is not a good thing. Hay everywhere means hay in the fur. At this point, I don’t think I will ever spin this fluff into yarn—although I keep a baggy handy to stick in every little bit of wool we comb out of our monsters every day. And yes, we groom, even minimally, every single day. We check for poop in the fur…we check for mats…we check for rabbit spit…whatever…the works.
The other day Charley, our resident vampire bunny (that story in a bit), had gunk all over his face. The one water bottle leaks worse than the others (yes, we have four 32 ounce water bottles, 2 on each floor of the rabbit condo) and E has a tendency to stick tons of the solid hay briquettes (we have alfalfa and timothy grass briquettes) all over the place. I pulled out no less than ten briquettes last night. One of the briquettes was under the leaking water bottle. I figure that’s where the mess came from on his face. Neither bun likes when you touch his whiskers. How do you wipe a bun’s face without touching his whiskers? Well, to get the mess of Charley’s face, there was no way around it. We ended up leaving the mess on his face—and the next day his face was clean. Whether he did it or Simon helped him, they are not saying. This is the obnoxious side of the rabbit. The rabbit parent never really knows what’s going on…they are simply happy it is going on, on some level.
Did you know that rabbits will just be sitting there, all calm and sedate, and then flop over as if having a convulsion? I’ve seen cats do that, but bunnies? Charley and Simon will just flop, over onto their side, or roll over on their backs with all their sharp clawed toes pointing up in the air, like the big goofy dog here. Out of nowhere. For a bit, I was actually worried there was something wrong w them. No one ever said rabbits would flop, not in any book. These critters don’t weight two pounds a piece and they will whomp down onto the floor as loud as the 65 pound dog when she collapsed to the floor to rest. Well, almost as loud.
We have Charley and Simon, what I am now calling the evil twin and the good twin, respectively. One note…the boys came w the names Simon and Garfunkel. I don’t know if Simon LeBon, lead singer of Duran Duran, will appreciate the tribute or not, but both buns are named after him, officially. Charley is Simon’s nickname from the band. The kids, who do know who Duran Duran is, since I tend to sing certain songs under my breath when I am not thinking about it (and, again, no, my son was not named after Nick Rhodes—my son was named after Czar Nikolas—thank you –sorry Nick), will tell you that Charley is named for the big brother in Charlie and Lola.
Simon is my lovely silver colored tort boy. He is as his first picture showed. A bit reserved, not really shy, but less apt to jump in your face and nibble your nose than his brother is. This does not mean he is not curious. He is the one who first tried to jump out of the top of the bunny condo. Simon, unlike his brother, was aiming up, towards the top of the hay container. Charley simply attempted to fly. Simon landed perfectly on the cage’s edge—where I luckily saw him as soon as he did it and tisk-tsked him back into the cage proper. Charley missed his jump and ended up falling on his bum. Charley was not deterred. Simon at least has not tried to jump out of anything since that first attempt. Simon is the good boy, the good twin. He is not withdrawn at all. He is open and curious and as ornery as any rabbit. He likes to be held, up to a point. He doesn’t mind being picked up, usually. He loves his bunny chow—but what bunny does not?
Charley, my little vampire, is more red. The breeder told me he is a chocolate tort, but I call him the red one—as opposed to Simon, who is the grey one. Now, when the boys first came home, the fence we used was only 12 inches high (it is now 26 inches high and we leave them free to run around in the fence 24/7)—because that was what we had on hand. That first week-end N was w us—and I was very afraid that N would go bopping through the kitchen, step over the fence and land on one bunny or another—so I … I sort of explained to him that we have the Monty Python bunny… two of them actually…killer vampire blood sucking attack rabbits, to be exact. By the end of the week-end N still refused to dip a toe past their fence, but he would reach over when the buns were in the top of the condo and very gently stroke whichever bunny was closer.
Now, Charley is our nipper. He’s our digger. He’s our let me at ‘em my name should be ALVIN!!! Bunny. Charley has a tendency to grab R’s jeans by the seam down the butt and just yank, w his teeth, as hard as he can. Both bunnies will do it, grab your jeans, usually at the hem, and tug on them. Charley has a thing for the seat of R’s pants…Charley does not care to be picked up. He freaks when you pick him up, but slowly he is starting to be ok with me, if I am very careful and very slow, when I pick him up.
Simon has nice smooth fur. It combs easily. He enjoys being groomed. He will couch himself out and just suck up all the attention while one or the other of us brushes him. Charley-oh my Charley boy…he’s….musty. His fur is always on the edge of being matted. He always has issues w his fur. The way things work w him, since he doesn’t much care to sit still and be groomed much at all, is I end up trimming mats out, trimming sticky stuff out of his belly, whatever. Simon is a love. Charley is a lover, on his own terms. I was holding him one night and the boy leaned up and nipped my neck. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He wasn’t angry. He’s like a puppy, mouthing things, testing things out. Since he doesn’t have hands, he uses his mouth. And now, Charley is called our vampire bunny.
Had I known how cute, how smart, how inquisitive these little snots were, I’d have had rabbits all along. I would not have gotten cats. I don’t think I would have ever gotten cats. I so prefer the buns. Of course, I keep looking at DumbDumb (Kendall, the border collie mix) and thinking—I should have gotten a rabbit instead of a dog.
Rabbits and I are perfect for one another. They don’t want to sit on you; they want to sit beside you. Yes, they are messy, but no messier than kids. I can now unequivocally say that rabbits are like fairies…you never know what’s going on, but you know you’re going to giggle about it at some point. I may need to buy five different components to go into their feed, but everything is so cheap it is more than worth the effort. Plus, once the buns are older and their guts are more developed, we can start feeding them ‘treats’, like turnip greens and carrot tops and all sorts of cool things. I personally am looking forward to seeing if these buns like bananas.
More to come on the buns. I am very glad they are here. They are helping me slow down, as I was hoping. Although, not really in the way I was planning, since rabbits require a great deal of care and maintenance…I’ll have to run you through out hey we’re home boys cleaning routine at some point. We are all spending a great deal more time at my house too. I get to cook at home now. I love that. Access to all my spices. Plus, access to all my books and clothes…although most of my good knitting needles are at R’s house…sigh…
Much work left to be done in other arenas. More to come.
Do you realize what I have been doing lately? Despite the attempt at the bunny intervention my friend Kerry tried to arrange for me, jokingly of course…I have been studying up on rabbits.
I have not been spewing, well, not overly much anyway, all the things I have learned about rabbits all over my blog, or facebook, or in person, or in emails, or in any other public place (although my journal is FULL of scrawls and plans and ideas….), but I have put enough out there that the whole world has to know that I am adopting a pair of rabbits here soon. (adopting means bringing home—don’t read into that).
I have read over twenty books. Hundreds of websites. I have tracked down breeders, breed associations, rabbit show people, 4H people, friends who have bunnies of their own, complete strangers who are more than happy to tell me about their rabbity adventures. I have done my research.
(not my bunny)
I have spent more time and money on two bunnies I have not yet laid eyes on than I have dogs, cats, fish and birds in my past. Although, to be honest, the parrot does rank up there in the sparing no expense field, but it was because I felt so bad for her, being all alone, and me not really knowing what to do w a parrot.
Maybe I am overcompensating for these two little buns I have yet to meet, since I haven’t had a rabbit in my life since I was a kid. Maybe I am doing the best I can with what I have to make sure I take the best care of them I possibly can.
As I research for the buns, I find myself reading tons of information about other species as well. I take the information I have about all concerned and see if it is something worth investigating for the buns right now.
FreeSpiritWriter points out here how organic pet beds are environmentally conscious, as well as healthy for your pets. Pet Hooligans goes into greater depth here about different types of fibers and how they are made.
I knit. I crochet. Hence the whole evolution into bringing angora bunnies home to live with us… I admit. I bought a synthetic fleece cup bed for the little lagomorphs. I also admit that I bought a larger synthetic fleece pet carrier pad for them to use when they are out of their cage. My quirky little brain has been working overtime…which I why I know in my heart the things I do—the ongoing research into pelleted foods and into homegrown garden veg for the new little bunnies is more than overcompensating for a lack of experience on my part. When I am willing to work on things for the buns to use and to play with, that is a labor of love.
It started with the thought of either knitting or crocheting pads, little carpets for their cage. Trust me. I have stash for days. I used to have the link to a particular project dedicated to this purpose only, but I cannot find it. I find a whole bunch of other links, something for every animals, from sweaters for dogs to toy whales for cats to toy donkeys for donks…Bev’s country cottage is a favorite resource of mine for various knitting patterns, not just for pets.
Then it mutated and became about knitting an octopus for the little kits. That is when I knew this is real love and not just trying to make up for my inexperience.
Buns chew, constantly. Angoras are prone to wool block, which can kill. Not that all bunnies don’t need to be watched, but angoras simply have more hair. Rabbits groom themselves all the time, like cats. Unlike cats and dogs, rabbits cannot vomit. There is no rabbit hairball about to be coughed up on the carpet. If a rabbit gets a hairball, and it is not treated, it can be lethal.
Which means I am even more careful about my fibers when I knit for them. I have various types of cotton…and wool…and hemp…although I believe I will be sticking more with cotton while I work for the bunnies.
It seems fair to me. I work for them. They work for me by making wool. To say nothing of companionship…and a real reason to force myself to slow down even more in order to care for them and their beautiful coats.
