The rabbit and a hare....

On May 14, 2013 our red San Juan rabbit gave birth to 9 baby bunnies.  I was so excited.  I just love baby bunnies.  On May 15, I found 2 dead in the cage.  On May 16, I found the last 7 all over the place - on the floor, in neighboring cages and some had bloody bite marks.  I tried  to put the babies back in Red's nest but she wouldn't have anything to do with them.  2 more died that afternoon.  Now, I have fostered puppies, kittens and chickens, but never bunnies.  I knew hand raising baby bunnies was usually not successful, but being the person I am - I just had to try.  I removed the last 5 from the nest and took them inside the house.  My husband just about flipped his lid, but one look from me and he shut up.  He knows better than to stand between me and animals.

I parked the them in the pantry because is has a door to keep the kitties out.  I put a heat lamp close to the nesting box to keep them warm but not hot.  I heated up some kitten formula that I keep on hand for just these kind of emergencies.  I started feeding them with an eye dropper.  Things seemed to be going well for a couple of days, then tragedy - 3 of the 5 babies died.  I was so sad.  What was I doing wrong?  Off to surf the Internet to figure this out before I lost the other 2.  After reading information from several different sites, I was able to determine that I needed to add heavy cream or half and half to the formula.  I didn't have exact measurements so I just eyeballed it.  It must have worked.

The bunnies are happy, healthy and full of spunk.  At the time of this writing, they are 44 days old.  They are eating pellets, carrots, grass, organic lettuce (I had some extra and thought I would share) and celery.  They also love the herb/weed known as plantain.  They are growing so fast!  Everyday, they get play time in the master bathroom. Why there?  It has tile floor (easy clean up of bunny messes) and I can close the door to keep stalker kitties and rough-housing doggies out!  They can run and jump to their hearts content without fear of being pounced on or used as a chew toy.

 I had to move them from the cardboard box they called home to a larger, better secured bird cage.  Now it seems it is time to move them to a more permanent home.  They need a hutch.  I don't have a hutch.  I am not going to buy a hutch because I think they are way over priced so I guess that means I am going to have to build a hutch.  It is going to have to built this weekend or next because I fear that they are going to get too big to get out of the cage!  I have to keep the cage door wired shut (unless it's play time or feeding time) because they can push it open.  Going to surf the net again to get some ideas then go raid the scrap pile to see if I have enough supplies.  I want to see if I can do this without spending ANY money.  I will post pictures of the bunnies as soon as my phone quits arguing with me.

Oh and the bunnies have temporary names Scratch -because of the terrible wound on his neck and his damaged right paw when he came inside. (which has completely healed and he has full use of his paw now.) and Spaz - I think you can figure this out.  My son and I want to change their names to suit their personalities, but they will still keep their nick names.

Cha Cha Cha Changes....

Yep, things are changing.  I applied for a new job much, much closer to my home and I got it!  I had the 2nd interview yesterday which lasted for 45 minutes.  My new boss also mentioned seeing me on television.  I was embarrassed, but hey - it may have helped me!  He asked me what would make me stand out while he and his boss were going over the resumes.  My answer - "I'm the lady who isn't afraid to tie on the apron and get her hands dirty."  He was still giggling when I left!  I start July 8th.

This is kind of bittersweet though.  I had to face the fact that I had to tell my current boss I was leaving.  I know, I have complained about work for months, but I do like the work I do here.  Oh - I'm not getting wishy-washy - I am leaving.  I just find it difficult to tell someone who took a chance on me that I am moving on.  I thanked him for giving me a job, car and free jewelry, but also that it was time for me to move on.  We talked for about 20 minutes and he did tell me that because I told him in a professional way, didn't tell any of the other employees and that I was a good employee, I would be more than welcome to come back if the new job doesn't work out.  How nice was that.  No wonder I shed a couple tears.

As much as I dislike how he runs things and sometimes treats people, he has been a pretty good boss.

I am looking forward though, not back.  It is time for me to move on and that is exactly what I am doing.  I think it will be tough at first, until I learn the job, but I know I can do it and be good at it.  Thanks for the positive thoughts and prayers.  I am sure they helped me get this job.

Feeling a bit nervous

I am having a CT scan tomorrow morning.  I am a little bit nervous about what it will show and what will happen.  Will I have to have surgery?  Is is bad?  Is it something I will just have to live with?  I guess most people have these thoughts when faced with the medically unknown.  I am hopeful though that whatever it is will not be terrible and if necessary can be fixed with a minor surgery.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  I know I need to stay calm and just let be what will be, but that is much easier said than done.  I'm a worrier.  Always have been.

And why are so many people in Germany reading my blog?

Are things looking up?

Well, it has been a few months since my last blog.  Just haven't been in the mood to type anything.  Since February, we did take a cheap vacation that didn't turn out so well.  My husband did get a job - that he absolutely hates - they treat him like poop.  He's been in the hospital with a serious bacterial infection.  We adopted 3 horses.  I had a job interview on June 10th and made it to the 2nd round.  That round won't happen until a certain person gets back from vacation on Monday.  I am so hoping I get this job.  It is only 6 miles from my house and it's 8-5 most of the time instead of 10-7 with an hour commute each way.  This company also offers full benefits - which means hubby could quit his job and go into the hay cutting business that he wants to do.  I know - a lot of risk, but it could be worth it.  He and a neighbor are working on the detail.  We took our 12 acre field out of the CRP program - wasn't happy with the requirement to spray Monsanto's Round-up products - they make enough money poisoning our food supply and I'm not going to help them.

We are currently babysitting a friend's puppy while they are vacation for the 2nd time this year.  He's a sweet puppy, but he keeps pooping in my bedroom - even after we take him outside.  Frustrating - thought I was past the puppy phase of having dogs!

I am currently bottle feeding 2 orphan rabbits.  Their mama is a Red San Juan mix, but refused to care for her litter of 8.  These 2 are the only ones left - they are almost 4 weeks old now.  Starting to reject the formula because they are eating grass, pellets and carrots.  I have installed a water bottle for them, too.  I guess I am adding 2 more pets to the herd as I told my hubby that they were not getting sold and they were not going in the freezer.  He just frowned. I've worked way too hard to keep them alive thus far. Going to try to figure out to build a hutch for them with scraps and a little farmgirl ingenuity.  We'll see what happens.

I failed miserably with my seed starting this year.  Oh - it started out great, until I put them outside to harden off and I forgot about them until about 2 weeks later.  They were certainly crispy.  Oh well.  We have direct sowed many other seeds and things are growing.  We have some volunteer pumpkins coming up in some very strange places, too.

Hubby built 4 raised beds for me.  He also built 2 stalls in the barn and we are going to start on a 3rd one this weekend.  My 2 year old horse is at the trainers for the month and so we have put off building it.  We put the 10 year old in his stall and the 15 year old in her own custom built stall.  She's only 28 inches tall so everything had to be built to scale for her.  Seems to working.

That's it for today - getting ready to head home from work.  Yes - I did this while at work.  I can do things like this while at work because we are a very slow store.  As long as we help customers when they walk in, the boss doesn't really care what we do.  That's one thing I will miss.  See ya' next time.