BLOOM

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Wish I had more time to post. Things are crazy around here. End of the year at school has the kids nuts....thank god we only have 2 weeks left. I will be teaching summer school this year so I have been busy designing my lesson plans. Also been writing lots of applications in hopes of getting a science teacher position for the fall. I hate the application process and some of the questions you are asked to write about.
Haven't had enough time at home to get all of the veggies planted yet. Tony did rototil the back garden, so it is ready. Flowers are starting to bloom..... the iris are almost ready. Need to do a lot of weeding and fill in the bare spots.
The Subaru is broken down once again, so I need to figure out what is next for it. The fox killed 7 of our chickens and one of my angoras died unexplainably last week. Bummers.
I need to get ready to head to work at the hospital.....wish I could play outside instead.

Cold and Cold

Its really cold outside (-5 without the windchill) and I have a cold. I stayed home from work today hoping to recuperate. Instead I got a phone call from the caregiver of the summer residence I help clean.... the alarm was going off that the water pipes were at low temperatures...could I go over and open the sink cabinets (as he thought that was all it was). I said sure seeing as it would only take about 30 minutes. Well I get there to find a freezing cold house. The indoor temps were ranging from 32-47 degrees! Long story short, they ran out of propane and I hung out for 3 hours in a really cold house waiting and working with the gas man to get the heat back on. One of the 2 furnaces wouldn't go back on and remains off overnight, but I'm done. I did my good deed.

Teachers meetings at work tomorrow. Still will be sick but not having the kids there will make it a bit easier of a day to get through.

The bunnies are living indoors in our sunroom for the duration of this cold spell. They can withstand cold, but I would leave them out there in these temps, especially with the wind.

Hagrid has dirty feet.

Sunoom/sewing room/library/bunny and cat romper room
See the bunny?

They do seem to love their outdoor living quarters though. I blocked the underside of their hutch in with straw and laid down a deep bed of it on the ground. They have a nice little burrow going under there.
The chickens seem to be fairing well even with these temps. We have a light up in the coop which keeps it a bit warmer. They have also been getting lots of extra table scraps to help fatten them up and keep them warm. Red, our rooster also gets special vaseline treatments to his comb and waddle to help ward off frostbite (been there and done that with our first rooster, Buffy).

Hagrid's Haircut

Yesterday was time for Hagrid's haircut. The weather has been a little warmer than normal and his coat was getting pretty long. He has some of the thickest fur I have seen on any Angora. We keep out bunnies cages on the screened in porch off the back of the house. There is plastic covering the screens, but it still stays pretty cold out there in the winter. Because I sure the temps will be dropping again soon, I left his coat a little longer than I normally would after a trim. The cats love the bunnies and always come in to hang out with them when it is shearing time. Hopefully today I will get my female bunny done as well. All of the cutting it took me on Hagrid left a big blister on my middle finger.

Fuzzy Buns

The bunnies have had their winter haricuts, finally. I think I should have done it sooner, but I didn't want them to get too cold when we were keeping them on the back porch. Girl bunny (she really needs a name) was first to go. She does very well during the process. I sit her on the ottoman in front of the tv and she will barely move. She looks like a different animal without her fur.

Hagrid's haricut was way overdue. He had a little bit of matting going on behind his ears and around his neck that took some work to cut out. Typically he is the more relaxed of the two, but he gets excited when i am clipping him and want to dig through the ottoman and explore the living room. When he is out to run around the sunroom he spends all of his time trying to find a way into girl bunny's cage. She bites out tufts of his fur through the wires (i don't know that that is so good for their relationship).

The plan is to make an attempt at breeding these two sometime next month. I need to do some more research so that I am ready when the babies are born. I think potentially we already have a couple people interested in buying one and god knows we could use the money. When I bought these guys Hagrid was $85 and Girl Bunny was $65 so it would be nice to recover some cash from them .