Woolybuns

A Temporary Inconvenience... I Hope

My laptop got hacked.  A phishing thing.  WS.Reputation.1 which someone else looked up for me and it's an email password stealer.  My network security says the situation is all resolved no further action required but my browser is compromised.  My son tells me there is something trying to redirect my browser to a different server so it can follow my wanderings and steal my passwords.  So I am not using my laptop until that is fixed.  So if I don't answer email, pm's, and comments, that's why. 

Revive Yourself!

Summer's here.  Spring fiber festival season is over.  Do you feel yourself getting a tad twitchy at the prospect of no fiber festivals for a while?  Well.  If you live or visit in the greater Boston area, you only have to wait until mid August for Fiber Revival.  It's a sweet little festival, very friendly and lots of cuteness.  Was it last year the farm turkey flirted shamelessly with everyone?    Oh, no, my photos say it was 2008.  Whatever year it was, he was quite the guy, puffing up in splendor much of the day.  And there are alpacas, too, of course. I've been to Fiber Revival each year,  as a spinner and a spender, helping another vendor, taking a workshop, and this year, I'm teaching a workshop.  Nuno Felting.  I'll be leading a group of no more than 8 in creating a deliciously drape-able, soft piece of wearable art.  You can follow one of my designs or create your own.  I bring all the materials, but you are welcome to bring along a favorite bit of feltable yarn or other fiber.  The website is not yet updated with workshop info but registration is through me anyway, so you can pre-register with me just by emailing me.  I'll send you all the details.  

There is only one baby left available in Hop Chocolate's litter, a blue buck.  So I guess it's time to introduce the new litter (the last one scheduled for now).  Mother is Moon Shadow, a black silver marten, and dad is Sweet Woolyum, self blue.  There are 5 babies and so far, they look to be 3 otters and two selfs.  Otters?  Yes, I know I said these are rabbits.  Otter is a color pattern in rabbits, fairly new in angora rabbits.  It comes from the tan gene, written as a^t.  That a^t  combined with wideband produces a tan pattern rabbit, and a^t combined with chinchilla gene (yes, still talking rabbit color genes here), produces a silver marten.  Each of these combinations comes in each of the four basic colors: black, blue, chocolate and lilac.  This litter appears to have 2 blue otters, a black otter, a blue self, and a black  self.  I expect to keep the black otter, which means at least one of the blue otters, the self blue, and the self black are available mid-August.  I don't know genders yet cause the babies are only four days old.   I do love having babies around! 

Midnight Midwifery

Yaaaawwnnnnnn.  I would like to be snuggled in my own bed, sound asleep as I usually am at midnight.   But my favorite doe is in the process of kindling.  I did what I thought would be a last check of the night around 11 pm.  She'd built a nest of hay but hadn't pulled any wool.  I turned to head for bed but then heard ... something.  I decided to investigate a bit because this is her first litter.  Sure enough, a few squeaks later,  I located a brand new baby.  And then another one.  I thought hmmmmm.  She sure felt like she was carrying a bigger litter but ok.  I'm easily fooled by my does at kindling time.  The two babies were starting to chill so I took them in the house to warm them with my own body heat (boobs are wonderful for that).  After they warmed a bit, I settled them in a box with some angora to keep them warm and headed out to check the doe.  Turns out, she's not done yet.  Does interrupted in the kindling process tend to stop labor until they feel safer.  Could be a long night. 

Get Your Cuteness Here

Baby bunny photos for you.  Blueberry Sundae is now 3 1/2 weeks old and beginning to get curious about  me.  His mother wants him to hide when I come to visit and she was trying to herd him as far away from me as possible, even grunted and stomped her front feet at him.  He listened, but only until she retreated to a different far corner.  Then he did that sweetly silly little bit of bunny walk on his tip toes to the open door of the cage.  I talked with him but did not attempt to touch him.  I can be patient sometimes.

 Hop Chocolate's babies are doing quite well, eyes opened a couple days ago so they are now exploring their house, and happily peeing on me when I check gender.  In this photo, you can see all three colors in the litter.  Starting from the left: chocolate girl, blue boy, lilac boy.  I'm leaning towards keeping the chocolate girl because I need does, not bucks, and bred to the right boy, she can produce lilac. 

And then there is the little white girl who ended up in Hop Chocolate's nest.  Her eyes opened today, consistent with my expectation of her birth date.  She started out bigger than her adopted siblings but they had a couple days nourishment on her, so competing against them for food has been tough for her.  I finally started supplementing her diet with a 1 ml syringe of warm water and molasses and she's now putting on a bit of weight so she doesn't look so ghastly.  She's a little wobbly, to the point I wonder if she has a problem but time will tell.  In the meantime, I am enjoying are little snack time together.  She's very cooperative with the syringe and snuggles in my hand quite trustingly.  She will definitely be staying here with me. 

Ugh... Me and Technology

Ummm... not always pretty.  But I'm a stubborn determined cuss at times and dogged persistence often proves fruitful.  So.  A non-working camera due to sheer stupidity (left it out in the rain over the weekend) and a trip to see baby horses.  You know I'm a photo ho. Only one  thing to do: turn to my cell phone with absolutely no idea how to get the pictures off the cell phone onto my computer.  I know others do it so it must be possible, right?  

So off we went to see the baby horses.  Our interest is - well, besides the fact that baby horses are just so darn cute - the sire of these babies is also the sire of the baby horse to be at the barn.  At least, we think the mare is pregnant.  We hope the mare is pregnant.  The sire is a Clydesdale/Friesian cross.  We specifically wanted to see the shoulders on the babies to get some idea what to expect.  Both Clydesdales and Friesians are big.  You know.  Big.  The hopefully pregnant mare is an Appy who is not big.  She's not tiny but she's definitely not in the Big category.  The babies are even cuter than expected.  Adorable.  Curious.  Photo worthy.  I snapped away. 

On the way home, we stopped at a cell phone store for an unrelated to me purpose.  But I took advantage and asked the guy behind the counter how to get pictures off my phone and onto my computer.  Turns out there is a micro SD card with an SD card adapter (yeah, I know, most of you already know that - but this is me, remember - the guy had to show me how to take the back off the phone, for cripes sake), so about $13 later, I have the technology in hand.   Unfortunately, this cell phone is the least intuitive model I've had (and with dogs chewing them up, me leaving them on top of my car and driving off, and assorted other misphaps, I've had a lot of cell phone models).  So I've been pushing buttons, googling instructions, pushing more buttons cause instructions don't match the stuff that shows up on my phone, sighing, cussing, and just generally persisting. 

And I did it.

Baby Update

Blueberry Sundae, eyes wide open, 15 days old.  He's growing quite well and will definitely be staying here.  He will be traveling to the barn with me on occasion, at the request of my trainer.  That way, she can have the fun of a bunny without the work.  

Bunivere was nesting when I had to leave for the horse show.  She built a beautiful nest in the corner under her water bottle.  Does do not like people changing the location of the nest so I moved the water bottle.  The weekend report from the pet sitter on her progress: she demolished the big beautiful nest, built a smaller slap dash nest in another corner and never pulled wool, did not have babies.

Hop Chocolate's litter threw a curve ball at me while I was away over the weekend.  My pet sitter called  to say he found 2 babies on the floor Saturday night, another crawling around the cage and only one in the nest.  That left 2 unaccounted for.  And I couldn't do anything about it.  Sunday, the pet sitter reported he'd counted 5 in the nest.  It's easy to miss squiggly babies in a nest if you're not used to counting bunny babies while containing an angry protective doe.  Oh, heck, it's easy to miss babies even if you are used to counting them.  So I returned home late Sunday evening and immediately did a baby count. Within the first 24 hours, I counted and recounted that litter, made note of possible colors, and there were definitely 6 babies, all of them color, no whites.  Sunday night, I counted one, two, three, four - hey, how'd this one turn into white? - five, six, seven... Seven??  Hmmmm...  I was too tired to ponder this.  Monday morning even before a first cuppa tea, I pulled the babies out and compared.  All the color babies are growing, no longer thin and wrinkly, and fully covered with hair as they should be at 5 days old.  The white one was a bit bigger than the color ones but not as fully covered with hair.  Apparently, Bunivere did have a baby and it must have been one of the two the pet sitter found on the floor.  Or possibly, since Bunivere's cage is the top one in a stack of three, with Hop Chocolate at the bottom, this little baby dropped directly into Hop Chocolate's cage.  Yes.  I could possibly have missed the white baby in the first couple days.  But miss the same baby on each count?   The only white in the litter?  The biggest baby in the litter?  I don't think so.  So I'm pretty sure this white one is a pure German from Bunivere and Bear.  There will be other clues along the way, such as the timing of eyes opening.  And coat difference.  As nice as Hop Chocolate's and Sweet Woolyum's coats are, they are different from Bunivere's and Bear's.  In all likelihood, this white baby will stay here at Woolybuns.  Choosing which one to keep from the color babies could prove difficult.  The color count: 1 chocolate, one lilac, 4 blues.  I think my choice will be between the chocolate and the lilac, since I am keeping Blueberry Sundae.  Gender and whether or not the babies develop any random white spots will also play a role in my choice.  At least three of the blues will definitely be available though, so if anyone is looking for a blue, email me. 

Blueberry Sundae With A Side Of Chocolate

Maybe.  The newest baby bunnies arrived early last evening.  I don't know yet what colors are in the litter, other than they are all self (solid color).  Mom is chocolate, dad is blue, and probably carries chocolate, so lilac is a possibility if mom carries dilute.  Black is also possible.  Mom and babies are both thin at this point, so I'll be watching them closely for signs that assistance is needed.  Feeding newborn bunnies, though, is often not successful.  Mom will be getting lots of extras.  The little blue self baby born ten days ago looks, at this point, to be a buck.  His name is Blueberry Sundae.  He is doing great.  And has already hopped out of the nest box, though he probably surprised himself with that move, and I don't think he was too happy about it.  I put him back in and he buried himself deep in the nest, all safe and snuggly in there.