10 or more thoughts...

in no particular order...

(Our babies from a few springtimes ago.

Just a random cute photo to go with a random post)

1. I am looking forward to a trip coming up soon.

2. I have so much to do before upcoming trip.

3. The slush and piles of dirty snow are slowly disappearing, as the air smells like springtime.

4. I love fresh white snow covering everything.

5. I also like the smell of springtime.

6. I am going to eat a BMT. This is my boy N's coined abbreviation for bacon, mayonnaise and toast.

7. I should probably skip the heart clogging bacon, heart clogging mayonnaise, oh- and the toast too. But then I would have no fun heart clogging flavor to savor. At least the bread is whole grain wheat, give me some credit. The tomato was beyond saving and the lettuce has had better days.

8. Note to self: buy a fresh tomato and some non-wilted lettuce.

9. Do you ever write on the bathroom mirror in the foggy steam after your shower? I yell at the kids for the streaks after it dries when they do it, but boy is it fun to do anyway. Maybe I'll do that today. Write on the mirror, not the yelling at the kids part.(Yes, then I wash it!)

10. Oh did I just admit I have been known to yell at my kids? So sue me! They sometimes "forget" to pick up after themselves either. See, I knew you'd be on my side.

11. I read to N. the other night while we were cuddling on the couch. He got very quiet and I read 2 more chapters before I realized he was sound asleep.I read one more chapter to myself after that.

12. We finished the book last night - after I back tracked to find the paragraph in which chapter he actually recalled last hearing.

13. I will miss the times when N. wants to cuddle and be read to.

14. I know I am not supposed to end a sentence with the word to.

15. I am going thrifting today in my window of opportunity. Translation: The shop is along the route from one place I have to be to the next place I have to be...with 40 minutes in between the two location responsibilities. How 'bout that for a relaxing session of browsing? Sometimes you have to take what you can get. My budget is $2.00.

16. Those bunnies we raised, shown in the photo above, were so cute (and so fun to dress in Barbie doll crowns), but I am actually happy to say "Been there, done that."

17. Random thoughts can be fun to record.

10 memories of springtime from my childhood

(Me among spring bulb flowers in 1965 and then 10 years later in 1975. The first one at home, the second at the park.)

1. Watching the spring bulb flowers emerge from the cold ground and burst into color and fragrance. My very favorites are Hyacinths. (I have been known to detour from my rushed, planned out route inside the grocery store just to swing through the floral dept and breathe in a big fragrant dose of potted brightly colored Hyacinths!)

2. Being able to run outside to play without having to first bundle up in 5 layers of clothing and coats, mittens, hats etc.

3. Seeing adorable baby bunnies and chicks, and other birds. I always wished we could raise baby chicks. Mom said absolutely not-They grow much too quickly. (Now that I'm a Mom, I have allowed my E. to breed her bunnies several years in the spring.)

4. Being able to wear white shoes again. Who can resist a new pair of white patent leather shoes? I think I may have even tried to sneak wearing mine to bed when I got a new pair. I didn't want to take them off. I'm sure they stayed next to the bed so I could open my eyes and see them first thing in the morning!

5. Taking my bike out for a spin up and down the street after it being banished to the garage all winter.

(1970-Me with my oldest nephew at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Michigan for Easter. He seemed like a little brother since only 6 years divided us. By the way, I loved those t-strap suede Hush Puppy shoes!! Big yarn tied in my hair!)

6. Going to Aunt B's and Uncle J's house and Grandma and Grandpa's house each Easter Sunday. They lived on the same street, which was pretty convenient. As a kid it seemed like a long ride in the back seat to get to their town in Michigan from our house in Ohio. The Easter Bunny would include a new stuffed animal in my candy basket and leave it by my bed so I would find it first thing when I woke up. The new animal usually went in the car with me that day. (In the photo above you can see me holding a rabbit. I still have her. Touching the pink velvet inside her ears still reminds me of that Easter's car ride.)

I had fun playing with my cousins and eating too much candy. We had to save room in our tummies because there were always plenty of good things to eat for dinner. Chairs were gathered from all around the house and pressed into service as we squeezed around the huge table .

( my ink and water color paint art)

7. The arrival of the first fat Robin birds in the yard and watching them take things from the dormant garden to fashion their nests.

8. Springtime break from school meant that when we returned to school it would be a more tolerable amount of time until the school year ended!!

9. Warm rain showers and the smell of the dirt after a quick down pour. The air feels so invigorating!! Jumping in puddles up and down the street and searching for the biggest and deepest puddle.

10. I had a great friend named Joan who lived next door. We would sit on the split rail fence that divided our two yards and play hand clapping rhyme games..."Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack..." and others. We even made up lots of them. When it was springtime, there was a Pussy Willow bush by the fence and we would pick off the soft, fuzzy buds in between hand clapping games-- and then get yelled at by her Mom or mine without fail! Here is where you insert an all-knowing Mom voice = "Are you girls picking at that bush??!" It was too tempting. We couldn't help ourselves.
(I just saw a bush for sale in the garden section of the store the other day when my kids were in tow. I shared this story with them and they thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Mommy getting yelled at for acting mischievously!!!!)

adorable

One of my many old children's books. I love them when they were very obviously read over and over and handled by little fingers that maybe weren't so careful. The more tattered the better, to me anyway! This one is from 1945. I could look at the tones of those color combinations all day long. They're my kind of colors. And those faces. Too adorable.

I am teaching a story time lesson one day each week again this year at the Elementary school. I enjoy it immensely! I am teaching two second grade classes one after the other. The second of the two classes is the one my boy N. is in. It is my 5th year doing this. I have taught 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students. I have to say 2nd and 3rd are my favorite. Probably 2nd grade more so because they still have a lot of innocence still at that age. They are so happy to see me and are anxious to learn. I bring a book and a lesson with a fun activity for them. I tell the kids I like to sneak in some learning while we're having lots of fun. We learn new words, geography, math and sometimes some science too. It gives the teacher a chance to grade some papers or such while I am in charge for awhile for each class.

This year I told the two classes that I love books a lot and have a big library of my own at home. I love picture books and have some of the books I read from the time that I was their age. I told them I collect old dictionaries. They thought that was super silly. When I told them that some of the books in my library were over 100 years old, their eyes got really big!! I said that some of the books I have are stories they have heard before-- but not the way I read them. I like to change the words and names in well known stories when I read them, to make them unpredictable and personalized. One of the best loved things I do is to read a rhyming story (like Dr. Seuss) at a normal rhythm first time through and then as fast as I possibly can the second time. I take a big breath and off I go reading so quickly they just giggle until their sides hurt.

Sometimes I run into students that were in my story time classrooms 5 years ago and now they are in 8th grade. They always say "Hello!" and often tell me their favorite story that I read to them or tell me that they always think of me when they use a word they learned through me or hear about a place on the globe that I took them to- in our imagination. I smile. That makes it all worth more than I can say!!

This is a page from the book I've shown you today. It is appropriate for our Ohio weather. Yesterday our temps were in the teens and the wind chill was below zero. We had to add more straw to the rabbit hutches so the bunnies could generate more body heat and be protected from the wind. They have thick warm coats. Gone are the days of putting frozen water bottles in their hutches to keep them from overheating in the almost 100 degree and high humidity Ohio summer.

What? One more?

[babies from springtime 2008]

As if we do not have enough cute and cuddly bunnies around here; we are getting one more!!!!
Actually we are getting one back!!

[babies wearing Barbie doll crowns]

One of E's baby girl bunnies from a litter in the springtime of 2007, that was adopted out, is coming back to live with us. She is not getting along well with the dog she lives with with her current owner. So we are taking her in. After all, with 8 bunnies, what's just one more mouth to feed?!! Can you see my somewhat forced smile? Actually, they are so adorable it is hard to resisit falling in love with them.

cuddle time

Clover's babies are getting bigger every day. They love to play on the porch with the kids and sometimes in the grass with a fence of chicken wire around them so they can romp and dig.

They love to have their daily apples and celery and carrots as treats. They can't get enough of juicy apple slices- their very favorite!!

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.

Clover's bunnies are 6 weeks old....where does the time go?

A. holding one of the 4 identical baby bunnies from E's momma bunny, Clover.

The one thing bad about white bunnies is the stained feet fur...but they are still cute!!

We have always trained our babies to lie on their backs. It makes them more calm when held the regular way by just about anyone. Sometimes the babies just fall asleep in this position! Here is another group of pictures from Clover's previous litter. Included in this photo shoot is another bunny baby relaxing on it's back!

The bunnies all enjoy play time in the grass. The kids set up a circle of chicken wire in the yard.

The bunnies are so sweet. We built two new hutches from the wood we recycled from our tree house we tore down. N. even pounded some nails! The bunnies are now outside - instead of on the porch in their cage -in their new (old) hutch with their Momma bunny for a few more weeks. Then they will be separated from Clover.

baby bunnies are 5 weeks old

Clover (E's momma bunny) is proud to show you

her 4 babies as they

grow like weeds before your very eyes!!

They are too big to hold in one hand anymore.

They are now 5 weeks old

and keeping E. and Clover very busy.

Clover is still nursing them but they also eat

alfalfa hay, alfalfa rabbit nibbles,

apples, celery and

drink from the pet water bottle.

E. is kept busy cleaning

the cage as 5 bunnies in the same cage

make lots and lots of

"little round balls"!!

E. and A. and N. have fun

dressing them in Barbie crowns and doll blankets.

The cage is on the glassed in porch and

each day we have escapees- as 2 bunnies

manage to be out of the cage each morning. They climb the wire mesh sides ( about 2 1/2 feet high) and slip through the bars on the lid.

Since they all look alike it is hard determine which ones are the rebels!

What a few weeks can mean

This is one of Clover's 4 babies at age 4 weeks.

A's friend tucked him/her (it's too soon to tell) in his

cargo pocket in his shorts.

Too cute!!!!

This is what one of the 4 babies looked like at 1 week old.

Amazing isn't it!!!!??

baby bunnies 2 weeks old

E's bunny, Clover, announces the 2 week birthday celebration of her 4 babies!!!

Their little eyes are open now and their ears are moving more freely.

They even sometimes scratch their ears with their little back feet.

This photo shows the size of the babies compared to Clover. You can see that she has her cold 2 liter bottle in her cage to help cool her in the Ohio humidity that has suddenly arrived. You can also see that clover has her daily apple, carrot and celery mixed with her alfalfa nibbles to make her milk more yummy and nutritious for her 4 little ones. Unfortunately, this photo was taken just before E. cleaned the cage, as Clover seems to do a lot more of something else too (it's round and it's not Kix cereal!)

They still sleep quite a bit yet when they are awake they keep Clover busy. Today they graduated from their nesting box as they just keep crawling out and getting trapped between the box and the side of the cage. E. took the box out...now they have the whole cage to romp around in.

It is unbelievable just how fast they grow in just 2 weeks. They started exploring the water bottle and licking the apple slices today.

Now they are a handful. Literally filling your whole hand.

Can you believe this was just 2 weeks ago? Isn't nature wonderful and magic?!!

Extra! Extra! Bunnies get some fur!

E's momma bunny, Clover, is showing off her babies at age 2 days.
(today they are 4 days old)
They are getting the feathery soft fur already.
The babies all have fat little bellies. Clover is a very good momma!
The eyes will open at about 2 weeks and the ears will stand up more too.
Look at those little nails.

Doesn't the tail look silly?
We don't tell Clover we think that...
we only tell her how beautiful her babies all are!!
She lets us hold her babies but she always counts them when we are done putting one back in the nest.
The babies make little squeak sounds and they wiggle like Mexican jumping beans all in a pile.
When we hold the babies they suck on our hand and sometimes pee on us too. ~~sorry, just wanted to disclose all :)

This is the baby that will probably be brown and white.
Clover is enjoying her extra goodies in her diet to make her milk even yummier... celery leaves, a tiny bit of carrot and slices of apples. She also eats food pellets and alfalfa hay. More bunny updates to come!!