The first 3 eggs

I assume these are from Alice, since she's the oldest in our crew.  Two days ago I found the first one, yesterday the second, and this morning the third.  All left neatly in the middle of her nesting box.  She's such a good little hen.

Love, J

Ginny's major malfunction

Sometimes an animal in a shelter or sanctuary will treat you one way when you interact with them at the shelter, and then be totally different the second you get them home.

I remember this happening with every cat we had when I was growing up.  The cat we picked out at the Humane Society was never the same cat who came home with us.  The second their paws hit the floor in our house their true colors came out.

Ginny is the most extreme example of this phenomenon I've ever encountered.  And the weird thing is she continued to dupe us for a while before she decided to get real.

I'll admit, I brought her home from River's Wish based purely on her cute, cute, cute looks.  She is absolutely pint-size and has the snowiest white fur with calico markings.  Freaking adorable.

She was one of the only unpaired rabbits at RW, so I thought she'd be a good third wheel to the brothers.  They worry me sometimes because they are SO joined at the hip it seems likely that when one of them passes, the other will be so heartbroken he'll soon follow.  

(I have such a good life I can afford to worry about stupid shit like that.  Also I'm using "worry" in the loosest sense of the word.) 

At River's Wish, she cuddled right up under my chin and fell asleep.  And this behavior, which is basically my dream behavior of any animal because it satisfies some need in me that I am not at all proud of, continued for about six weeks.

 She took real naps with me.  It was crazy.

And then all of a sudden she just wasn't that into us.

She's become the frostiest most curmudgeonly tiny white rabbit you'd ever care to meet.  

She's like an adorable child star who knows how to trade on her good looks but is an utter brat.

And damn if I don't love her all the more for her aloofness.  It is so incongruous with her schmoopy exterior it's hilarious.

Also we thought she was still a baby when we got her but she never grew any bigger.

My little Ebeneezer Thumbelina.

Love, J

Alice in my lap

I am first and foremost a weird rabbit lady.  But this little chicken has captured my heart.  I think if things had gone a little differently, I could have wound up a weird bird lady just as easy.  I think I'm just susceptible to weird (fill-in-your-animal-of-choice) lady-ness.

And then we tried to take a selfie, but neither of us are very good at it.

 Love, J

Alice on the porch

Chickens, man.  Who knew?

Love, J

Paul's progress

Poor Paul is recovering from a spinal cord injury.  He's doing pretty well, considering he was completely paralyzed from the waist (does a rabbit have a waist?) down for a week or so.  

Now he can hop in a lopsided way and one of his hind legs looks like it's almost back to normal.  The other one's not as great, but we've been taking him to see a vet/acupuncturist and I think it's helping.

I get a lot of eyerolls when I mention the acupuncturist to people, but if doing everything you can to help your animals is wrong, then I don't want to be right.  

Plus it was sort of our fault he got hurt, so there's a bit of the guilt factor going on there.

But mainly we just love him.

Love, J

Alice's favorite game

I caught her napping on the bookshelf.

And then:

Her favorite is to climb to the back of the couch and launch herself into the kitchen when I'm doing dishes.  It seems like she's aiming for my shoulder but she'll land anywhere - my head, the sink, the counter.  She's not the most precise flyer.

Love, J

Chick

Hello again.  

I'm going through a years-long phase where I would rather set myself on fire than sit down to a computer away from work.  

However, I've got a backlog of some sweet photos*, videos, and general life updates I want to record, so here I am.  

We have a chicken now.  She showed up under step-dad and O's** back deck about a month ago, and was passed along to our household because we don't live with any sneaky cats who eyeball her with that rotten look on their face that says they're just biding their time until the humans leave the room.

This is her a few days after coming to live with us, when she was much smaller:

I really appreciate her company while I play in the garden.  The rabbits all need constant supervision so I have to keep them in their pens if I want to get anything done.  But this girl just follows me around, cheeping, eating bugs, and taking dirt baths.

She also makes an excellent nap buddy.

And she appreciates the Daily Show.  This is not strictly necessary to win my affection, but it does get you pretty far.

She's living in the kitchen until her coop is finished.  Then we'll get her some chicken friends and she'll move outside with them.

For now she seems very content just hanging out with us and the rabbits.  She's especially bonded with Ginny, who also goes by "The White Rabbit."  And so our little hen is "Alice."

Love, J

*Please forgive the noticeable downgrade in photo quality.  I never replaced Photoshop after we lost our laptop in the burglary, so all these pictures are off my phone and mostly raw, with maybe a couple run through a filter.

**G now goes by O and uses male pronouns.  Same person; same cute little face; same eye roll when he hears me talk about his cute little face.

We saw the goats again

Ha, can you tell I've been busy working? Long days on my feet = evenings on the couch curled around my embroidery hoop; not much to blog about.

I may try to sneak my camera in to work sometime to take pictures of the greenhouses, though the best parts aren't photograph-able: the sunny, balminess that fogs up my glasses as I come inside from the cold, and the neat, satisfying feeling of clipping leaves as I tidy the houseplants up for customers. Even though it's hardly the stuff a career is made of, it's a pretty sweet for-now gig.

We did make the trek to River's Wish last weekend to visit our favorite baby goats. They've come a long way since we first met them. Where before they both sort of tottered around newborn-Bambi-style, now they hop like fleas all over the place. They both liked to jump on our backs when we leaned over, and they gummed the crap out of my coat.

Said coat now smells like goat, but I can't say that's a bad thing.




Love, J

Santa Paws

The hubs, G and I had a blast helping out at the winter fundraiser for River's Wish. We made vegan treats for the bake sale, snapped pictures of people and their pets with Santa, and enjoyed the general, Christmas-ee merriment.

We kind of had the best Santa ever. He told me that when he was a teenager, his mom got him his first Santa suit and he put an ad in the Nickel Nick that he'd visit kids and parties and stuff for $15. His dad had to drive him around town then, he didn't even have his license yet.

I always want to send out holiday cards, but the tree-hugger in me can't abide the paper waste.
So consider this photo the Hubs' and my festive, green greeting!


How much does this cutie look EXACTLY like Cindi Lou Who?!?

G and I had great success with our vegan snickerdoodles (from an old magazine I had lying around) and one for homemade, vegan peanut butter cups

5 straight hours of jolliness takes its toll

Love, J

Art for the Animals Recap & Thank You

The first ever Art for the Animals auction was hugely successful in both ways that count: it raised a bunch of money, and it was a really fun night. Check and check.

I call this: Volunteer with Goat

This is Kit.
Kit runs River's Wish with her husband Pete.
Kit gets stuff done.

My BFF knows her wine.

Truly this photo is too blurry to be posted.
BUT, it's the only one I have of a very cool lady:
the animal control officer who rescued our sweet Sarah.

I award this pair two prizes for the evening:
Traveled the Farthest
&
Best-Looking Couple

And I call this one: Did I Win the Genetic Lottery or What?

And for the grand finale, Aunt Micky came up to me at the very end of the night with a neat little square package and informed me that after a bidding war with her, Grandma & Grandpa won Aunt Mary's painting and wanted to give it to the hubs and me. So now I have a new favorite thing ever.

Boo yah.

Thank you to everyone for donating and/or attending the auction. This is one charity that I know does incredible things; I've seen it. And they really do appreciate the bucks and put it toward very worthwhile work!

Love, J