Bunnies!

A week or so ago, we were talking about how Gabrian and Ariana used to like feeding the bunnies when they were little.  Wynn was surprised to learn that we used to have rabbits.  (I was surprised she hadn't noted pictures on the blog.)  She wondered where we put them, and when I said, "In the rabbit run," she didn't know what I meant.  I explained that the wire pen below the deck was for rabbits and how it was made with wire under the dirt so the rabbits don't dig out.  I suggested that it might be possible to get more bunnies (Yeah, twist my arm!), and she was really excited.  I said we'd have a lot of work to do because we haven't had rabbits in a couple of years, and we'd have to dig out the run (which was completely overgrown with morning glory).  The next day, she was out cleaning the run.  She requested that I take pictures of her working for the blog, which I did, but I can't find them.  (Sorry, Daughter.)

The next step was looking at lots of pictures of bunnies to decide if she wanted standard ears or lops, as well as pictures with people to scale the rabbits so she could decide if she wanted a large or small breed.  She settled on lops, and I think she'd have been OK with any size, so it was just a matter of which variety became available first.  First available were 8 week old Holland Lops.  SO CUTE.

These little guys created a little work in a couple of areas.  First of all, we have had French Lops and Mini Lops, but not Holland Lops.  These will be smaller than our other rabbits, so we dug the whole rabbit run out, down to the wire, and I am in the process of lining it all with smaller gauge wire before we put the soil back in.  (I am scratched to bits from sharp bunny nails and working with wire.  Cuddling a bunny when a Great Dane comes along to sniff isn't gentle on the skin of the upper chest.)  No hurry on the rabbit run project, though, because, for now, the bunnies live in a 2'x2' cage on the deck until they are "potty" trained and desirous of handling.  They are very friendly actually, the grey more than the black, but I won't put them out where they could dig or hide from people until they consistently come to people and want picked up.  Otherwise, we'll have shy bunnies who bolt underground instead of coming to us.

In addition to housing, we had to come up with names.  Wynn tells us that in China, animals were not given names, and trying to think of names was a strange and difficult task.  She liked that their colors matched the cats' and thought maybe their names should match, too.  Over and over, then, she asked to be reminded which was the grey cat and which was the black one.  I think it's funny that she's been here a year and a half and doesn't know the cats' names yet, but it does illustrate how "animals with names" is a hard concept for her.  Our most recent three rabbits were Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato.  We thought these should have philosophers' names as well, but these are does. We found names of female philosophers that were associated with Socrates and Plato, but the names are just a mouthful.  (Examples:  Perictione, Lastheneia, Diotema, Aspasia.)   We thought maybe we should just go with female names from Greek mythology, but that wouldn't be parallel anyway.  (I also suggested Twilight for the grey and Eclipse for the black and got a satisfying round of wails from Andrew, Mandy, Conor, and Cameron.  lol)  Finally, Andrew said, "This black one has a white streak in her hair," and I knew what we should name her:  Polgara!  And Polgara's twin sister was Beldaran.  This was met with enthusiasm by Andrew, Mandy, and Conor.  (David Eddings characters if you are one of the rare and unfortunate people who have not read the Belgariad and the Mallorean.)

Look at Wynn's smiles!  Project well worth while!

More pictures, just cuz: