Thursday, July 17, 2008

Please allow some one else to have and feed these cute bunnies...

I told E. it is time for her to earn some money and sell all but one of her bunny babies. The babies are growing and growing and eating and eating! This is the first litter that Clover has had that are all identical. It's really quite frustrating; like a bunny optical illusion.


No, don't worry- they do not live in a green laundry basket. We put them in it to take photos.
They all are so sweet though and well tempered. We have them trained to lie on their backs from the time they are about a few days old so they will be more relaxed being handled by just about anyone when being held the normal way.



They live in a very nice large hutch made of wood recycled from our tree house that we tore down, recycled chicken wire and wire mesh screen.


So E. is hoping that now that the babies are 8 weeks old she will be able to guess which one is a male (sometimes it's not so easy to tell, we have been fooled before) so she can have another future Daddy bunny. We have one male and three females among the adult rabbits.
Rabbits are actually cheaper to keep as pets than many other animals. You don't have to take them to the groomer, like a dog and you don't have to buy them shoes, like a horse. Although, E. would love to some day have her own horse. When she was little she thought she could just move our fence farther back into the woods and keep a horse in the storage barn and that was as simple as it was to get and keep a horse. That's why she now keeps bunnies.

Lazy Summer Day and no bills to pay

A note about the glassed-in porch= I bought a queen size sheet set at the Big Lots store for $7 and used the fitted sheet to cover the swing cushion by safety pinning it on the back side; the flat sheet was used for porch curtains on the sunny side (A. ~age 12~ used the sewing machine to run rod pockets for this); the pillow cases were used for seat cushion covers on the wicker chairs that I pulled out of the neighbor's trash (they just needed new cushion covers); I sewed a flouncy skirt cover for the ottoman (it was pulled from the neighbor's trash too!)in front of the swing using some fabric I had on hand
....and tadaa! A newly decorated porch!
N. and his "friend-girl" J. (both age 7)- eating pizza on the porch swing
watching a video of the Muppets.
N. and J. are the same height and they both have long legs. I tease them that if they got married when they grow up they might have babies that are all legs!! They just roll their eyes at me.

Remember when you were little and all you wanted to do was hurry and grow up?! Then when you are grown up and have bills to pay and ....well, then all you wish for is that you could be little again!! I look at my kids and think about that a lot lately. N. says he is bored some days and has nothing to do (poor kid; must have no toys at all), and E. is always saying she wants to be treated like a grown up (yet she still makes immature decisions).
I wish I had a day to do nothing and I don't think I could feel bored even if I tried.

Kids do not think about the fact that Mom has stocked up on the frozen pizzas when the store has a sale for 99 cents or less. They only know that they are hungry and they want you to fix it NOW, no matter what you may be in the middle of doing!!

Notice the pizza face!!


When I was little I know I wanted to be big and grown up too. But I remember wanting to stay a teenager longer, though. That means having a little more freedom but still having the safety net of Mom and home underneath you.


When I was little I played outside from morning 'till night time or until it was time to come in and watch Ed Sullivan or Laugh-In or Sonny and Cher or Carol Burnett or Mr. Ed or The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch on the TV with the bunny ears on top. I would come in for a bath after a hard day of playing cowboys and Indians (now probably politically incorrect 'cuz you have to change the language of everything now days --including bathroom tissue instead of TOILET PAPER!), or cops and robbers or tag (another one now outlawed) or Red Rover Red Rover or just endlessly riding my bike within the physical boundaries set according to age. I hate that lots of toys require batteries or electricity or a computer or a TV. I am a firm believer of Lego's and Lincoln Logs and crayons paired up with scrap paper and building faerie houses out of sticks and moss and stones and shells or puddle jumping. On this day, however, I allowed the kids to watch a video bought for 99 cents at the resale store (because NO ONE wants VHS videos any more!) and eat some 99 cent pizza while they are waiting to grow up and have some bills to pay!!

ATCs for a special person

[You can click on the image above to enlarge it and see more detail.]

I have been terrible about getting birthday mail out to the post office for my dear ones BEFORE their birthdays.

I made these ATC's (which means artistic trading cards) and they are in the mail this very minute, but late. I need to get my butt in gear, in the future.