Daffodils II

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We are having a compressed spring here in the Carolinas, with a cold February and everything coming up at once. The daffodils are essentially going nuts. Betsy took these pictures.

Note the freshly painted storage shed in the background, courtesy of Bob and Roy.

On a vaguely related note, this mushroomy thing popped up beneath the rabbit hutch. It was so weird I had to take an early morning picture.

2009/10: Not a good winter for elderly rabbits

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Petey The Rabbit had been acting a bit “off her feed” for a few days, hiding out inside her various boxes instead of keeping a vigilant watch from on top. Friday morning I had her out on the back deck. She seemed to be breathing heavily, and offered no resistance to being scooped up – her usual attitude toward being captured is, ”Ha! Catch me if you can, buddy.” Plus, she started to hold her chin up in a funny way. So I took her in to the vet.

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Well, that didn’t go so good. She had been to the vet before, and was very passive and well-behaved, in a somewhat nervous way. You expect that when you bring a rabbit into a building that smelled of dogs and cats – predators! But this time it wasn’t long before Pete started to stress out, and then to panic. Then she went into cardiac arrest, and that was that. The vet, the nurse, and I couldn’t do much more than watch her die.

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The vet said she was very anemic, which would explain the heavy breathing and the strange, holding-the-chin-up-breathing posture. She was doing all she could to keep her body oxygenated. Her chest was also very tight, which could possibly indicate a tumor. These small prey animals have evolved to be very good at hiding any signs of weakness or illness. By the time you notice anything is wrong, it’s often too late.

Petey the Rabbit

Petey was eight years old, as far as we could tell, which is fairly old for a rabbit. She definitely had some grey hair! We got her from a friend whose school/sports/life schedule had just gotten too busy when she started high school. She lived with us for four years, and got along famously with our old rabbit Bruno. Bruno was definitely the alpha rabbit, being the male and over twice her size, but Pete was the brains behind the operation.

Pete and Bruno, relaxing

When Bruno passed away last December, Pete seemed to need a friend, so we got Mr. Skippy from the pound. Skippy and Petey bonded quickly, and turned out to be a great pair, in spite of the May/December aspect of the relationship (we think Skippy is around 2 years old). Pete was very happy to finally take on the roles of both alpha rabbit and hutch queen. That way she finally got the lion’s share of any mutual grooming.

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Petey was a quick, energetic, yet cautious and affectionate bunny that had a couple interesting personality traits/quirks:

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- She liked being in her hutch. She liked hopping around the deck. She liked being held. But she DIDN’T like transitioning between any of these! She could be very evasive when it was time to be picked up. I think it hearkens back to the days of the wild rabbits, when their greatest fear was “death from above” – hawks, owls, etc. The first rabbit we ever had, Zeb, had a definite fear of airplanes.

- On rare occasions Pete would escape from the deck. Instead of tearing off across the yard, she would make a U-turn and go under the deck. As in way under the deck. As in, into the dark, dank, narrow, forgotten, nearly unreachable recesses WAY back in there. It was there that she would start to dig her Hole To China. And being fast, extremely determined, and essentially pure black, she was very tough to corral. Especially by a six foot tall human, skooching around the decaying leaves on his belly, armed only with a broom, and harboring a healthy fear both of cranial bruises and protruding deck nails.

- The best thing to ever happen to Petey was Bruno. In fact, in her earlier life she was assumed to be a male. But when she moved in with Bruno, her behavior made it obvious that she was definitely a Petey, and not a Peter! Bruno had been fixed, so Pete was disappointed by the lack of litters. But she would build nests a couple times a year, just in case. When the nest building instinct hit, she would get totally fixated, tirelessly building the nest day and night out of what ever she could find – shredded paper salvaged from the litter box, torn up phone books, grass, hair pulled from her belly, and so on. And when she was on a nest building binge, you’d better not get in her way!

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Petey, getting ready for another nesting frenzy

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I think rabbits, although small and passive compared you your typical dog or cat, make really great pets. Sure, they're cute. But what makes them endearing is their distinct personalities and individual character. Petey sure had plenty of both.

Mini Garden 2010

I built this cold frame many, many years ago as a birthday present. It has essentially gone unused since then, the transparent top gathering dust and mold in the then-yucky crawlspace.

Last year, to kick off my Big Crawlspace Renovation Project, I pulled the top out of there, cleaned it up, dug up the existing dirt, added some compost, and planted various types of lettuce. What did I have to lose other than $1.89 in seeds? It was easy, and provided lots of leafy greens for both humans and rabbits.

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The vent on the lid is supposed to have a temperature sensitive hinge, opening the vent when it reaches a certain temp. This actually operated as designed at some point in the past. I don’t think this works anymore, but I’m not too worried about it.

I did this year’s planting just the other day. I just used last year’s seeds, hoping that's not being overly frugal. One row of green lettuce, one row of random mixed salad greens, one row of kohlrabi. I can’t wait to see what, if anything, happens with the kohlrabi. I've never grown kohlrabi before, and it looks like a truly bizarre veggie:

Next step - figuring what to do about those overgrown kiwi vines. Still thinking a pergola is in order. Now, THAT should be a fun project. As opposed to a crawlspace (entry through the three foot high white door in the background), you can actually SEE a pergola.

Here's how the Spring 2009 crop turned out.

Since we’re on a Caveman Carpentry kick...

Bass Stand

Anything that starts life as a piece of framing lumber qualifies as Caveman Carpentry. Here’s a double bass stand that I made. I got the idea from Jake de Villiers, who runs The Bass Spa in Vancouver, BC. He had an example posted on one of the TalkBass forums.

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Since it has to live in my great room, I wanted it to look at least half decent. I used a less-than-shabby pine 2"x10"x8' for the stock. Cut it up, screw it together. Countersink and plug the screw holes. Sand, stain, seal with danish oil. Glue cork on to the contact surfaces. Caveman carpentry at it's finest!

Errors / things that needed tweaking:

1 - The board I picked out had good grain and was nice and straight, but turned out to have a slight cup That made the build-up more challenging and the end product look slightly more, umm, "rustic". Live and learn.

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2 - I'm 6'0" tall, and play with about 7" of endpin out. If I had made the whole thing just 1" taller, I could just drop it right into the stand without having to stop and adjust the end pin first. Sometimes it's that extra 30 seconds of putzing around that stops me from just picking up the bass and playing for a few minutes on a whim.


Remedy: install those little elevator blocks on the bottom. Inelegant, but still not shabby.

Caveman Carpentry. Or...

... Recycling 201.

I love caveman carpentry - making something rough but useful out of leftover lumber. Nothing high-tech, or involving fine woodworking in any way. Probably started with building go-carts out of scrounged wood bits when I was a kid.

It DOES occasionally get cold here in the winter, especially this year. We always worry about the rabbits when the temperature dips down into the 20's and teens, although we typically find them hanging out in the most exposed part of their hutch, their fur coats all fluffed out, totally ignoring any of the provided shelter boxes, with big smiles on their faces. Years ago we got a little plate heater that is designed for inside a pet box. You plug it in and it keeps a steady 85 degrees, or something close to that. (No hassenpheffer jokes...) Our rabbits have always actively ignored whatever shelter box we stuck it in.

So this year I chopped up a cardboard box, making a slot to slide their litter box in through, plus two "doors". Figured they are going to use the litter box anyway, and they seem to prefer boxes with two doors. Maybe it's some instinct about having an escape route... Anyway, it was a hit. Although much more time was spent on TOP of the box than inside it. At least they had a warm place to bail out into if they needed it.

But cardboard only lasts so long outside in an rabbit-intensive environment. If not actually edible, it is great fun to shred. So it was a good excuse for a session or two of Caveman Carpentry!

Old version. Litter box installed. Note the caving in top...

Petey, not at all worried about falling in.

The new box, dubbed The Heated Rabbit Lodge.

The Lodge was constructed out of particle board and hardwood flooring scraps leftover from the Great Room Project. Note the upside-down hardwood flooring on the roof. I thought the varnished side would be too slippery, as Skippy often has some significant momentum behind him when he jumps up there. Plus, it looks great from the inside! A good opportunity to not only recycle/reuse, but to get more use out of the various manly power tools.

Signs of Spring

Betsy got the camera out and took some early spring photos on Saturday. Because of an unseasonably cold winter, we are a good 3-4 weeks behind the usual schedule down here in North Carolina. The plants are pretty confused. They did respond to a couple of dry, windy, sunny, upper 40 degrees days.

Here’s what’s up in the garden.



The Veronica reopens:

Hellebore. (Great name for a plant...)

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Crocus of various flavors:

Snowdrops:

Sedum

Rosemary. It turns into a good-sized woody shrub around here. This one has been blooming all winter.

Coming soon: lots o' daffodils! But it's snowing outside right now...

Spiny gum balls. Ever-present. A new batch rains down every February.

Skippy The Rabbit update

Well, Skippy has moved right in, and has been making himself at home. The people at the animal shelter said he had lots of personality, and they were spot on. He's a really happy, curious, friendly, and generally fired-up rabbit. Pete has been teaching him the local customs - where to hang out, how to deal with food treats, etc. He tears around the deck doing multiple happy-hops, and will even roll over on his back when he's on break. I think he likes it here.


It took Petey only a couple days to get used to his high-energy ways, and now they are a nicely bonded pair, as you can see in the photos. That was fast!
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Left: Skippy _________ Right: Pete

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We like to let the rabbits hop around the back deck whenever we are outside. They love it, of course. Any deck has lots of rabbit escape paths between and under the various boards, but Petey and Bruno had historically ignored them. We would just temporarily block off the stairs. A year or two ago, Pete had taken to slipping under or through the slats and hopping off the deck. She wasn't interested in running away, but was totally fixated with going WAY under the deck and digging a hole to China. My idea of fun is NOT crawling around in the under-deck muck, trying to coral a whacked-out rabbit who had other things on her mind.
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So I had a plastic mesh fence stapled up. It was really more of a suggestion of a barrier, since any self-respecting rabbit could bite its way through thin plastic in about half a second. Let me tell ya - many an I-pod headphone wire has been nipped in two over the years! How come this... oh, jeez... But Skippy quickly figured out that the fence could be easily defeated, so I installed some proper metal screening the other day. I even did it in a way that doesn't look crappy.
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It's been relatively cold for NC the last month or so. But let me tell you, nothing heats up faster than a black rabbit in the sun. Unless its TWO black rabbits in the sun.

Toastin' up, taking an afternoon snooze

It looks like Skippy will keep his name, sometimes lengthened to the more formal "Mr. Skippy". It just seems to fit him.

Southern Snow

We got 4 or 5 inches of snow the weekend bofore last. Not really news, but we only get snow like this every other year or so, at most. It's beautiful, and reminds me of home. Or homes.

It was mostly gone in 8 hours. But it always makes for a good picture or two.

Carb o' the Week

Pancake Day 2010

Little did I know that there is such a thing as Pancake Day. How have I been missing this all these years? This was brought to my attention by the the folks at IHOP and their TV ads during the Winter Olympics.

A smidgen of online research revealed that Pancake Day is a mosty British variation on Fat Tuesday, which, of course, marks the last day before the start of Lent. This day rates as a Notable Date in England, a step or so below the lofty status of Bank Holiday (one of my favorite concepts). Related festivities include foot races involving running with skillets, and mob football. Tell me - what's not to like here? I think I have a new favorite holiday!

Also revealed were other variations on the Fat Tuesday theme, including Fastnacht Bay (large, Pennsylvanian Dutch donut-like things), Malasada Day in Hawaii (fried dough), and Bursting Day in Iceland (salt meat and peas, from the culinary tradition that brought us the split, singed sheep's head). You can look that last one up yourself, but I can assure you it is very real.

Anyway, all this called for waumping up a fresh batch of Bob's Random Multigrain Pancakes. This effort featured:

- 1 cup white flour, 1/2 cup semolina flour, 1/2 cup blue cornmeal
- molasses
- 1T or so wheat germ
- 1T or so ground flax
- 1T whole flax seeds
- blueberries
- the usual nuts and bolts (salt, baking powder, etc)


BEFORE:

AFTER:

The Feral Rabbits of the U.P.

Christmas 2009,
City Park in Iron Mountain, MI

While visiting Iron Mountain, MI over Christmas, we went over to the City Park to go sledding at the old Myron ski jump site. Along with bocce courts and ski trails, this park has a fenced in herd of deer. I assume that is for showing the seven people in the area that don’t deer hunt, hike, or snowmobile just what these beautiful animals look like up close. Actually, it is pretty cool – it is a VERY large, natural enclosure, and they even have a rare white buck. But more importantly, this park is home to a pack of feral rabbits! Rumors are that this rabbit herd has been there for decades. It was news to me…

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If you’ve ever been to the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I don’t have to explain that is area is truly The Great White North. Winters are long, cold, dark, and snowy. Summers are mild and very pleasant, with long days. On clear nights you can see LOTS of stars. Beautiful country. (One downside is that Novembers last forever.) Although elusive, they do have moose and wolves. This is NOT the kind of climate where you would expect to see ex-domestic rabbits out roughing it outside on their own. We had a good foot of snow on the ground, and winter was just starting. Nighttime temps are routinely below zero. A daytime high in the single digits doesn’t even stir up chat at the local diner. These critters seem to live under a cabin, and I’m guessing they have some substantial burrows dug. There doesn’t seem to be evidence of official feeding or watering. Talk about big, tough Yooper bunnies!

The rabbits seem to come in three flavors: Black, grey, and brown. We brought them some old lettuce and a fresh bag of carrots. Most entertainment I ever got from $0.79.

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I did a little searching, and there is a similar pack of rabbits that inhabit Victoria University in British Columbia.

The Tale of Mr. Skippy

We decided that Petey The Rabbit was acting pretty lonely since the passing of her good buddy Bruno. So yesterday I went to the Charlotte Animal Shelter to investigate getting her some rabbitly company. They did indeed have a good candidate bunny. I brought Pete along with me to the shelter, so they even had a speed date to make sure they got along (or, a rabbit-on-rabbit interaction, as they say at the clinic). He's a fixed male, all black, slightly larger than Pete, and goes by the shelter name Skippy. We're guessing 2 years old. He was a favorite of the staff there.

So far, this is a VERY fired up rabbit. Guess I can't blame him: rescued from the pound, large and expansive new digs, a female to hang out with, new stuff to sniff and explore. He has been spotted tearing around the various cage boxes in figure eights, doing happy hops on the straight-aways. Pete is a little perplexed by all this energy. And the, umm, male attention. It took him an hour to figure out how to get up on top of the highest box, so that is no longer a private safe haven for Pete. But Mr. Skippy manages to give her some space, at least some of the time.

We're thinking about whether Skippy gets a new name or keeps the one he came with.

This afternoon was cool and sunny, so they got to hop around the deck for a while. I took a few pictures and a video.

Skippy (for now) The Rabbit

Looks a lot like Petey, eh?

I’ll edit this video when I learn how to edit video.
I do like the chain saw buzzing in the background…

Cooking Errors

Always a fun topic. In the kitchen, not everything goes right all the time, as even Julie Child could attest.

1) I made a pot roast in the Romertopf clay baker last week. I had really forgotten that we owned one. But I heard my cycling buddy George going on about how he had just gotten a Romertopf and how great it was. So I dug it out. I had a big, honkin' pot roast from Costco, along with the traditional potatoes, onions, and carrots. The first recipe that came up on Google said 425°F for two hours. Well, that was not quite enough time to tenderize that tough old hunk o' meat - the veggies were great, though! I had to run out to a band rehearsal, so Betsy was tasked with the rest of the roasting. Well... time kind of got away from her. (I suspect knitting was involved!) I came home to a clay baker that now contained seven charred, dessicated rectangles that had been pot roast in a former lifetime. Should have taken a picture!

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2) This is what happens when you are late at adding the chopped nuts and raisins to the bread machine. It was too far into the knead cycle to incorporate all the bits. They essentially stuck to the outside. The raisins kind of got a bit, umm, toasty. Kind of a short loaf, too, but tasted good once you plucked the burnt up raisins from the surface...

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3) The old waffle maker croaked back before the holidays. Fortunately, Santa gave someone - guess what? - a new waffle iron for Christmas! Go Santa! The first waffle didn't turn out so great, though. They did get better after that.

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4) And this is what happens if you deep fat fry a chunk of plastic by mistake:

R.I.P. Bruno

Bruno the rabbit passed away this morning. He was our big, black-and-white bunny. From what we can tell, he was part Checkered Giant, and about 7 years old. Hard to be sure, given his history. Bruno came to us through the Mecklenburg Animal Shelter. We have him pegged as an Easter gift rabbit that just grew up to be much bigger than expected, seeing that his name in his former life was along the lines of “Baby”, or “Tiny”, or something like that. Definitely NOT the name a child would give the big, bold,10-pound thumper of a critter that we knew as Bruno.

The Mecklenburg shelter smartly requires that all outgoing pets be fixed. Along with that distinction, Bruno was also the only rabbit in the ‘hood to have an ear tattoo and an embedded microchip ID thingie. Pretty cool for a bunny.

Bruno is survived by Petey, his longtime friend, partner, and soulmate (those of you in South Carolina know what that means). They lived in a high-rise condo next to the back deck, a child’s play structure that was converted to a big, deck railing-level, covered hutch. In nice weather, Bruno would enjoy spending hours hopping around the deck, chasing Pete (or vice versa), and eating his favorite found food - old, dried-up oak leaves.

Bruno was a well-loved friend, and will be missed by all who knew him.

Great Room Project Update, Thursday, 11/26

Minimalism II

I went up to IKEA and picked up a pair of cool Swedish minimalist chairs. IKEA is a great place. A lot of their stuff is a tad on the utilitarian side of things, but a lot is also actively interesting. They have great product names. The chairs and footstool below are from a line called Poang. Not sure if that translates into anything at all. Plus, they have good food, especially the Swedish meatballs and the desserts. But I was there at the wrong time of day to take advantage of that…

Continuing on with the minimalist theme, here’s the room with the Poang chairs assembled and installed. Kind of a knitters / music listeners / TV watchers cave. Hang something on the walls, and I could live with this.

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The new sofa arrived on Tuesday. It’s B-I-G. Big and tweedy. It even came with those matching pillows. I think we are moving away from minimalism now, and getting back to a new and improved version of the way the room has historically been arranged.

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We still have to get stuff up on the walls: the big glaring hole above the fireplace, the wall above the piano, etc. And the curtain scheme needs to change, but that will be Betsy’s contribution – drape selection of any sort is not a part of my personal skill set!

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I’m still looking for a way to rationalize putting up some kind of ye olde and rustic outdoor gear collection. Like a set of old wooden skis, some snowshoes, and a pair of wooden canoe paddles. Just seems proper for a displaced Northerner living in the New South. The collection could go up on the high wall, maybe above the kitchen area. I already have the paddles. Too bad none of my 1980's era skis are anywhere near rustic enough. A pair of classic 210cm Rossi ROC550's, anyone? Those probably date to the late 1970's. Jeez...

Great Room Project Update, Tuesday 11/17

Slowly moving stuff back in

1) A number of smaller projects have kept us from just hauling stuff back into the Great Room. We've run out of room to store CD's, and are looking for a better system than the current free-range CD stacks that grow on various tables, speakers, and corners of the house. If that big, honkin' entertainment center had another shelf above the TV, we could stash them in some kind of box system. So I had to build a shelf to fit up there. Hey - another chance to use my newly-acquired stain matching skills!

2) Hate to move our crappy old couch back into a nice new room. We sure got our moneys worth out of it, since it's older than either of our kids. It's lived a long and useful life, and is ready to be retired. But that leaves a pretty gaping hole in the decor, so we've been couch shopping.

Here's the room as it stands. Actually, I kind of like the empty, stripped-down, minimalist scheme. Except for the beat-up couch. I suppose we'll eventually want to hang pictures, arrange doo-dads, and move the rest of the furniture back in.



Here's one of the sofas we're considering. It's really a multi-colored tweed fabric, but it may end up looking like a plain beige couch from over 3 feet away. We may need to go with a darker fabric. The floor is light, the walls are light, the wood furniture is all pretty medium. The only dark-ish thing in the room is the rug.




The local squirrels are really tearing around outside today...