Spiders: Brown Recluse

The most common spider around here is the Brown Recluse, also known as a Violin Spider. These spiders love to hide in loose piles of debris, like wood piles, corners of a garage, under your lawn mower or if indoors - in furniture, closet corners and folded clothing. I found one last night just outside of the Bunny Barn in our pile of sticks we give to the bunnies to chew on. I'm not usually that jumpy around insects, but this spider in an exception as they are poisonous to humans and these pesky insects tend to strike when disturbed or threatened by humans. I wasn't bitten, it just put me on the defensive to find it and kill it, which I did.

If you are bitten by one of these spiders, seek medical attention immediately. This is not to be taken lightly, as the wound can take months to heal and it leaves a deep crater like shape on you, if not treated properly. This picture of a bite on this man is horrible looking, but you will look the same if not treated. You have been warned.

Use common sense when moving anything outdoors, as they are usually close by even when you might think they are not.

This image is not a fake to scare you any!

Rabbit in La-La Land

This was written by a friend over on the House Rabbit Society's website and I wanted to share it here with everyone, mainly with Caryn, as this story reminded me of what your bunny was doing while you were away. lol Not that it's funny when a bunny rips up your carpet and puts you further in debt, but this story from the rabbits point of view is very funny.

Rabbit in La-La Land
Written by Helen Weiss

Hello, I'm Wabbit, and I own two lovely humans--Sotos and Helen. We all live in a comfortable apartment with a balcony which I also own. When Helen brought me home four years ago I was just a dainty little dame. I let my humans know right away that I was feisty and curious, and with a few exceptions I have always been given free reign of our living room.

When I was young, I gave Helen and Sotos plenty of work around the house. I kept Sotos busy patching carpets and repairing phone cords. For some reason they were constantly devising techniques to prevent me from doing my work. I took great joy in outsmarting them. Oh, I liked chewing on the little pieces of wood bought for me, but nothing was more fun than digging up the carpet or jumping on desks and bureaus to chew up papers and clothes.

I'll never forget the time they tried to prevent me from hopping on the bed. You see, the bed was rabbit heaven: soft blankets and pillows good for hours of cuddling. The only problem was that the blanket and sheets were without holes and required some work on my part. Strangely, Helen and Sotos couldn't see the value in sheets with hundreds of holes. They seemed embarrassed to hang such sheets on the line.

The humans tried draping a barrier of fabric from the ceiling and tucking it under the mattress. To them it looked formidable, but when they were asleep or away, I just untucked the drapery with my wonderful teeth and went about my shredding business. They got irritated and took turns shooing me off the bed, but as far as I was concerned they slept too much--and there was work to be done. Five- foot board barriers were next. That was easy. Using the nightstand as a springboard, I jumped over the boards and landed plop in the middle of the bed.

In my mature years I give Sotos and Helen less work. I still teach slow people the right way to play Scrabble, but whereas I used to flip their racks into the air, sending their tiles flying into a real scrabble, today I am content with gently lifting the corner of the board. I have even stopped chewing on the phone and electric cords. Mellowness, though, has not diminished the amount of love, licking and laughter that I give.

All in all I am happy and healthy, and gets lots of attention. I do wonder what life would be like if I shared it with a long-eared short-tailed darling. I daydream about bunny love in my spare time--on breaks from my busy schedule.

Rabbits For Dummies

Okay, I know what you might be thinking, but this book is the best reference book for everything you ever wanted or needed to know about rabbits. I have the first edition and I just bought this second edition tonight. I know just about everything about rabbits, but even knowledgeable people need books of reference from time to time too. Look at all the doctors and surgeons of the world and see how many books they each have. More than I can count, that's for sure. You don't have to be a dummy to read this book, unless you think you are one. lol I feel like one sometimes.

Of all the books I do have on rabbits, I use this book more than any of the others. It's paperback and that's a plus for me, as hardbacks are hard to keep the pages open to a spot you need to stay open without putting something on the page to keep the page from turning. Borders has it for $17.00 and it has 368 pages. All rabbits are listed with details of each one, feeding, bedding, training them, and even how to groom them properly.


Happy reading and happy trails!

Barbie Doll Collector

The more you read my blog, the more you will learn about me. :)

As my many friends will tell you, I am a huge barbie doll fan and collector for my age. I have two of the very first barbie dolls that my mom had back in 1959 when they were created. One is still in the original box. Every year she would collect the new series and store them away. When I turned 8 my mom gave me the whole collection and I was in heaven until she told me I couldn't play with them. What a drag that was.

Now that I am older, I can see her point as they are worth a lot in the original box and mine has never been opened. The original is worth over $4,000 and up to $10,000 from what a person from Mattel has told me in a letter. Mattel makes the dolls.

To date I have a little over 2,100 different dolls. Yes, I am serious. Last year was the special 50th Anniversary and I got all 28 dolls in that series for my birthday. I was blown away as I had never gotten that many at one time before. I also have 14 barbie houses and dream houses, 8 barbie cars and too many sets of clothes for each doll. I have 2 Ken dolls too. Hey, she had to have a date you know? lol Each doll in encased in an individual airtight container and I have a hutch that holds them all.

Barbie's real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts and was created by Ruth Handler, who died in 2002. (RIP!)

This is a remake of the original in 1959 that was released last year for the 50th Anniversary.

This one is the 50th Anniversary doll. It sold last year for $60 brand new and already it has rocketed up to over $300 in just one year. Amazing!

Bunny Babysitter

This is very interesting.

I was in class today and my phone buzzed. That never happens when I'm in class, as I keep it on in case of an emergency. When I saw who the call was from, I immediately asked my teacher if I could be excused, which she gladly said I could be. I called the person back expecting bad news, but was asked a question instead. I was very relieved nothing bad had happened, but I did question why I was called during class as this person knew I was in class. To make this shorter, I was asked if I could babysit a mans rabbits while he went out of town for an emergency. I said, "what? you called me to ask that?" It turns out the man who wanted his rabbits cared for while out of town needed an answer now, so my caller considered that an emergency. Ok, well whatever, that's not an emergency to me, but I did tell him I would care for his rabbits if only he either brought them to me or I would pick them up.

It turns out the man wanted me to come to his house each day while he was gone and care for them, and I told him I couldn't do that. He offered to pay me triple to do it and I still told him I couldn't do that. I don't go to strangers houses or anyones place of residence for that matter while they are out of town for a couple of reasons, which I told him, but he about begged me to do it for him. I don't think he understood what NO meant. I don't have the time to go all over town feeding rabbits. Bringing them to me or me picking them up to be cared for is much easier, as everything I need to care for them is right here. Finally, he agreed to drop them off after much debate. I understand his concern for them, but he has to understand my schedule too. Anyways, 5 more rabbits will be joining us for the next 10 days or so as guests. I will have to put them in our holding area so no one gives them away. lol

Happy trails!

Thoughts and Thanks

Thoughts and thanks from lilBunny: < thats me. lol

It looks as though Blogger finally got my messages and fixed my sticking blog. My blog page would stick in a holding pattern for about ten seconds when the page was first opened and it stayed that way for weeks. It was driving me insane, so I wrote to Blogger three times about it. I have not been here that much in the last week, but I don't have the sticking pages anymore which means they must have finally fixed it. Thanks Blogger!

Since I opened this blog in late March, I have had 432 visits. I don't know if that's good or bad, I just want to say thanks to everyone that does visit here on a daily basis. I have had 56 comments in that time, all good, and thanks for those too. I love comments!

I'm down to days now, not weeks, before I graduate from high school. WooHoo! Counting today, I have 19 more school days to go. I don't count weekends and never have. Final exams are approaching fast and I have been hitting the books a lot in the past week. I'm looking forward to them, even though they drain my brain entirely. I used to hate taking tests and exams, but this year I have felt so much different about them and looked forward to most of them. I'm not a brainy person, just a person who loves to learn as much as I can. Before high school I used to get like c's and d's all the time. This year has been mostly b's and a couple a's too.

In June, I'm planning on going to Ireland with my best friend Megan. We have been planning it since January and so far, everything is going according to plans as far as reservations, funding, places to stay, car rental, flights, etc. Megan was born in Ireland and has lived here in the states since she was 5. Her and I have been best freinds for the past 2 years. She still has family in Ireland, so we will be staying with them most of the time, and will be getting away on own our own for 10 days to explore the island and just hang out really. The entire trip will be for 30 days! I can't wait until we board the plane to go!

That's about it from me right now. I plan on being here more this week, even with my jam packed schedule for the next month. I hardly have enough room to breathe. lol

Happy trails everyone!

Mini Rex Rabbit

I got a family of 4 mini rex's over the weekend that were given to me from a family that is moving overseas and wanted to write something about them for the ones that have never heard of them.

They are derived from the standard rex breed and the Netherland Dwarf. The one pictured is a tri-color mini rex. This particular breed has many varieties: Black, Blue, Blue Eyed White, Castor, Chinchilla, Chocolate, Himalayan, Lilac, Lynx, Opal, Red, Sable Point, Seal, Tortoise, White, and Otter (blue, black, chocolate, lilac). The fur on them has a plush feel to them, much like velour, which the standard rex has too. They are also one of the easiest rabbits to breed and are very good mothers. They excel in the sport of Rabbit Hopping too. I bet you didn't know that was a sport did you? lol

I will be using them for breeding and their first litter I will be keeping for myself, to add to my already large family of personal pets. All future litters will be for adoptions.

Part Timer

I have taken a part time job as I need some xtra dough. How I was able to squeeze it into my already tight schedule was not easy to do, but I made it happen. The one thing is that it has taken me away from coming here and updating my blog like I was doing. I used to have a couple hours of freedom at night before bed to come here and visit other blogs, but that has been downright impossible the last week. I barely have enough time to eat in between the Bunny Barn and now my new part time job. With school thrown in, all my chores, homework, etc., I'm tired by the time I get home for bed, only to get up 5 hours later. I won't be working weekends, as I can't. That was part of the agreement. What am I doing? I'm the newest cashier at one of our local markets. It's not a bad job and I like it, and that is what counts anyway. I will be doing it for the next two months, then I'm off to Ireland for a month with a friend, then by the time we get back it will be about time for college to start three weeks later. I'm looking forward to that. :)

Happy trails!

We Got Rain!

Oh my gosh, it is pouring down rain outside and it has been that way since I got up this morning. WooHoo! We need it too as it has not rained here in almost 10 days. So far we got a little over two inches and that's a lot of water when draining into barrels. I hope it rains all day long!

We made some modifications to the rain barrels by running some flexible 4" plastic tubing from the gutters into the top of the barrels, then connected them all together as each gutter gets a different amount of rain, and then a friend of ours added a check valve of some kind in each barrel in case they get full, which drains to the nearby holding pond. Awesome huh?! It was worth all the work to get it done too. No more wasted water! No more moving barrels like I used to do either. I am excited about that!

I have only seen our rain barrels full one time in my short life. It was a few years ago when we had 8 days straight of rain, mostly downpours. They were overflowing! Florida is tropical, but that was too tropical for me. We had to move the bunnies up to the second level as water was coming in under the doors and flooding the lower levels. Sink holes were popping up all over the neighborhood and county too. They are scary! In that 8 days of rain storms, we had over 12 inches of rain. Can you believe that? 12" in a week! I don't mind rain, but that is too much. A couple inches of rain I can handle.

Thanks to all my readers and followers. I love you all for reading my jibberish and leaving great comments. They make me smile each time I see them. :)

Happy trails everyone!