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| Daughter#1 is holding Puff and Mrs. B is holding cloud. |
Mr. and Mrs. B (lets call them) are the leaders of our Junior Canadian Ranger group here in HH and have been for the last 12 years.... (I think they really want to retire now especially since their kids have grown up and are married and are having children of their own.) They opted many years ago for an alternative life style and so they live off grid entirely. One of the things that they decided to do was to make their lives as self reliant as possible. So raising and eating rabbits (instead of chickens) became one of the ways in which they do that. They have raised all kinds of rabbits from lops to giants to angoras to regular old rabbits. This year they have over 40 wee babies to deal with forget all the bucks and does. (That's what male and female rabbits are called.) About a month ago Mrs. B had a terrible car accident where she fell asleep at the wheel on the way back from Edmonton and rolled her vehicle three times... she walked away with out a scratch but we were all so grateful that she was ok that she had visitors at her house for days afterwards. (*Hey... Google can't spell afterwards!!!) Anyways I happened to be one of her visitors one day and when I got there she was working in the rabbit yard with the rabbits. I gave her a hug and she said she was so glad to be alive and that she was going to put a sign on her steering wheel saying "Have you had your nap today?" While we were standing chatting the rabbits were all bouncing around in their cages quite happily. Right out of the blue, Mrs. B said, "Hey come and look at these rabbits." So we walked over to a cage and there before us were two of the cutest pouffiest rabbits I had seen at their place ever! Mrs. B started talking about these two goofy rabbits that had been born, and that they hadn't had angora rabbits for some time so she was surprised that there were two throw backs to the angora gene pool. Then she said she had one more but she wasn't sure yet if it was going to keep it's angora traits. We chatted about their big feet and their goofy ears which are apparently a throw back to some lops they had a few years ago too. And then Mrs. B. said, "you know maybe you could show the JCRs a little bit about angora bunny fur spinning. We could get these rabbits down at your place and we could comb them and show them about the fibre. It would be awesome." I kind of said yeh or maybe or something in the positive and then we went into the house for tea.
It was only after I got home that I started to think about what she had said and I had bunnies running through my head... (far better than counting sheep because they are more quiet!!) That's when I got this brilliant idea.
The Bs have been running a rent a bunny program for years. Everyone loves to raise a bunny but really once they are past the bunny stage everyone thinks they are a pain to keep as a pet. Really... We tried it once... our dog ate the bunny right before our 5 year old and 4 year old daughters... it wasn't a pretty sight... there was crying and gnashing of teeth and snot all over the place, (mainly on the front of my shirt). Forget the death throws of the poor wee rabbit after the dog realized that she had done wrong and had dropped the rabbit on the floor. (I'm sure the Daughters will need therapy for that at some point in their lives... maybe its better if they remain repressed!) So the Bs will let a child take a rabbit home with a cage and some food and you can raise it for as long as the child has interest and then when they forget to feed it and are bored with the rabbit the Bs will take it back... slaughter it and eat it and the next year you can get another wee bunny if you want to... it's great really. So with that in mind I decided that the best way to get into raising angora bunnies would be to try out her rent a bunny program and take the two cross angoras and see what comes of it. Now how to tie it with the JCRs was another thing altogether. I mean I could show combing rabbits and spinning rabbit wool but that would interest kids of 12 yrs - 18yrs (most of which are boys) for about a half minute. So I thought about it some more.
Many years ago we had been given a bunny hutch that someone wanted to get rid of for our chickens and ducks... It worked out really good because if we needed to remove the nesting fowl we could put them in the bunny hutch and they and their eggs would be just fine. We used it frequently up until we got rid of our chickens. It was now that I was thinking about bunnies that I looked out the window one day and noticed the bunny hutch sitting down by the chicken coop, not in use I might add, that I got a brilliant idea about the rabbits.
I love brilliant ideas.
I would enlist the help of the JCRs, to move the bunny hutch to a place more conducive to raising rabbits and teach them about the wool of rabbits and Mr. B could slaughter and skin a couple of rabbits and Teapot could teach them how to snare rabbits and then we could all enjoy a fire in the fire pit and roast some rabbit meat and wieners and drink juice and all that good stuff.... I got right on that and the planning began.
Yesterday was JCR rabbit day at our house and so it went...
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| Daughter #1 and I watching the JCRs and Teapot moving the rabbit hutch to its new location. |
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| Setting the hutch on it's new stand. |
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| Puff (dark grey) and Cloud (light grey) as of this morning having their breakfast. |
Afterwards we all roasted wienies and rabbit pieces on the fire and it went really well. We also learned how to make a wienie microwave out of a chunk of wood. (This was really cool since it cooked wienies evenly and in seconds. I'll have to show you all that sometime. Very cool.
So our rabbit day went off without a hitch... and even the weather co-operated.
And now I have a ready supply of angora.... how great is that?!
1 comment:
Love your new Pouff Balls, they are so cute, where can I get one, lol. No, just kidding, for now :)
What a great day you had with Mr. & Mrs. B. and the kids. Would have loved to be there. cj
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