Our Newest Additions

It would seem as if we didn't have enough going on in our lives with this post...I assure you, however, that we are in WAY over our heads! So, if I'm going to tell you the story, I'm going to tell it with all of the details....

At the beginning of July, Scott and I went to IFA (farmer/hick store) to see if we could get Aspen a new water bucket. While we were there, Scott happened to see these cute little Norwegian Dwarf bunnies. They were so darn tiny! I mentioned to Scott, "Oh, look how cute they are! I just want to take one home with us!" Well, we decided against it and left the store. A couple of days later I was sitting at work and I received an e-mail from Scott which described in detail what this particular type of bunny likes to eat and what they live in along with several pictures. When I got home that night, Scott had made us dinner and told me that before we ate it, we had to go somewhere. We ended up driving to a house in Riverton where we picked out our very first baby bunny...5 week old Lucy! We took her home and made her a temporary 'home' in one of those large, deep Tupperware containers. I was so worried she was going to get out that I went down at about 4:00 in the morning just to make sure she was there. Sure enough, she was sleeping like a baby. Around 6:00 Scott and I were getting up and decided we would go down so he could see her sleeping. We walked down the stairs, peeked over the container and Scott's first reaction was, "Oh, she buried herself in the towels to get warm!" My response, "Lift it up so we can see her." Well, after checking through all of the towels we realized that our tiny bunny had in fact escaped. The hunt started as we searched the house but ended quickly when Scott checked under the couch in the living room and Lucy was curled up. We caught her and put her back knowing that we were going to have to figure out a better place to keep her while we were at work. We found a really tall box we had used to move and she stayed in that until we could get her a cage that evening.

Well, after we got the cage we set it up outside in the shade and got her all settled in. She seemed to do great her first night! I left for work and ended up having one of the worst days so far. It was awful and after several e-mails venting my frustrations to Scott I finally was able to go home early at 3...it wasn't early enough! I got home, let out the dog and went to check on Lucy. To my horror she was laying there unresponsive. I immediately started crying and called Scott letting him know that I had killed our bunny! He tried his best to comfort me over the phone and then told me that he was on his way home. About forty minutes later, Scott found me sobbing uncontrollably and went out to check for himself. We sat and talked for another half hour or so about my awful day and he knew that the added bunny death was just the tip of the iceberg.

After the trauma, Scott insisted that we try again. He read up on 'the most common causes that bunnies die' and we discovered that heatstroke is often a cause of death. (I guess bunnies only have sweat glands on their lips...who would have thought?) I was hesitant to get more since I felt entirely responsible for her death but he was persistant. I went to work on Saturday and when I got home everything seemed great. I went upstairs to change and all of the sudden standing in the doorway was Scott holding two more of the Norwegian Dwarf Bunnies! I was scared to death! It took me a few hours to warm up to the idea again, but I finally came around.

We have since increased in our knowledge of these bunnies and have learned to love the newest additions to our family. Otis is the fat gray one who simply seemed like an Otis. Comet is the black one who was given that name based on the fact that he is constantly cleaning himself AND Otis. Don't worry, Otis and Comet are brothers so we don't plan on having any MORE bunnies anytime soon. Needless to say, we just love our 'kids'!

Speaking of kids, our daughter, Aspen, has been doing particularly well lately while working with Scott! Looks like she has a countdown to hunting season just like someone else in our house does...