Incidents and accidents

This morning at about 8am, I get a phone call from Bruce. “Hey, you awake enough to take Issac? We’re going to go to the hospital and try to have a baby today.” I can hear the smile in his voice. I say “Yeah, sure. I’m good.”, and he says he’ll be over in just a few minutes. 15 minutes later, he shows up and hold a towel out to me. “Here, a present for you. It’s a baby rabbit.” Sure enough, squirming around in the towel is a tiny wild cottontail. Bruce says “It was squirming around in the driveway. It was either run it over or bring it here.” So, during the course of the past two hours, Christine’s been admitted into the hospital, and I’ve been on the phone with every wildlife rehab person in Georgia. With the help of a few web sites like this one, I’ve found that the best chance this guy has is for me to find the nest and replace him. This baby is less than 6 days old, and must have been picked up by a predator. Mama rabbit never moves the babies that young. I’m hoping to find the nest later on tonight at around dusk, because that’s when mom-bunny comes back to feed them. One wildlife rehab person told me to try and feed him a little sugar water in the meantime, so I mixed some up. I fed it to him, and he(it?) seemed to perk up a bit. They sleep all day in the wild, so I’ll take sleeping now as a good sign. He’s got one small scratch on his foot and another on one side, perhaps from the driveway flopping, but more likely from whatever put him there. Septicemia is fatal, so I’m hoping he wasn’t hurt by a cat.

Edit: 10:19PM. The bunny did not make it. Trinny and I went looking for the nest and found a sibling who also did not make it. At least he died warm and with a full belly. That counts for something, I guess.

Last seen: at a farm, on the deck. Yeah, I miss my bunnies. It’s been a week, and I’m still having trouble sleeping at night when John’s not here.. It’s just too quiet. I keep doing things like they were still here. I put a cord on the ground a few days ago and I said to myself “I’d better pick that up or the bunnies will eat it..” No, I guess they won’t. I get almost daily updates, and I know they’re doing great. They’re outside on a deck, so they get to smell real air and everything. They even got to dig in real dirt and plants a few days ago. They sound really happy. It’s a bit of a relief to have them gone though. It’s a little lonely here by myself sometimes, but I also don’t have to worry about letting them out, or feeding them at the right times.. etc. I can keep my books on the floor where I study and not worry if they’re going to eat them. I can keep my bedroom door open and not have them eating my sweaters. It’s quite nice not to have rabbit hair all over my towels too.
In other news, I’ll be taking 4 mice from Trin as soon as she gets her cat back from her ex-husband. I have the cage all built and ready for them. It’s next to the window right now, so they’ll get more light than they’ll like. In the new place it’ll be more in the dark. I hope to be able to get some really cute photos of them. The Dapper Rat does great photos with rats, but I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to do with tiny mice. It’s a good thing my camera has a macro setting. I’ve also been researching on mice as pets, and it sounds like they’re pretty funny creatures. Mouse @ horns has been my main resource page. They have some great toy suggestions, and well as some decently healthy and cheap treat ideas. I’ll get some photos wehn they arrive.

So, tonight is the last night with my bunnies. Tomorrow afternoon, the cage gets loaded into the back of John’s pickup and driven over to Josh’s place. His mother wanted bunnies, so she gets da bunnies. They have an atrium that Quigley and Maisie will get to go out in. I think they’ll be happy, but I will miss them a lot. I won’t miss the poo on the floor, the chewed corners of my homework, the bite marks in my sweaters, or the digging/claw marks on my doors though. I’ll miss the furry bunny-piles in the middle of the floor. I’ll miss the feel of the soft fur on Quigley’s nose, and the little black heart patch on Maisie. I’ll miss having fur balls to come home to, to say goodnight to, and to feel tortilla chips to in the morning. I’ll miss the pair of them running circles around my feet, or running the ‘Bunny 500’ at top speed behind my couch. I’ll miss silly bunny flips in the air for no reason. I’ll miss my bunnies.

Well, I’m now back in class for summer, which means I bought books today. ::sigh:: I HAD money, for a while. I have two classes. One from 8am to 10am, and one from 10:15am to 12:15pm. Wheeee… It’s only for 5 weeks though. Would you believe that the finals are on my birthday? One class has already moved the final to July 30, but I’m not sure about the other.

I also get to pack up all of my crap this month! Yippie.. The bunnies go to their new place soon, which means I can start packing and not have them eat the boxes. I have loads to throw out. Trin is taking my drafting table, since all of the art I do now is digital. I’m throwing out loads of crap that I just haven’t used in forever, so if you’re looking for something, let me know. I may have it. My fish will be going with me, and Trin’s 4 mice (which means I have to mouse-proof the birdcage I have), but no more pets for me. I think the only thing that John and I will have doubles of is a microwave. His bed will go in the game room/library, in case one of us wants to sleep alone, and he doesn’t have a couch. Pots and pans are all useful, and the second TV will also go in the game room, so we can play video games on it.

On Friday, Wesley (my co-worker) talked me into going out with him and Eric to BoneShakers (the local gay club/bar) for a Drag Show. Now, when I say Drag Show, I don’t mean a tractor pull or something. I mean men making up odd names for themselves, dressing up as women and doing dance numbers. It was all part of the BoyButante Back to School bash. I met 6 professional drag queens, all of them with funny names. Like Anastsia Armani, Ella Gant, Leetha Weapons, Wild Cherry Sucret, Sasha Jeans, etc. Leetha Weapons I didn’t meet this time, because she died in a car accident in May, but I met her last Halloween with Megan downtown. The party was so fun! We got there, and there was no one in the bar itself. I thought “there’s no one here. How boring..”, but then we went outside, with the rest of the 300 or so people. The drag Queens were on stage one by one, doing songs by different artists. They had to have changed clothes like.. 15 times each. While they were singing, people would come up and give them tips. I wanted to tip the woman that does all Reba covers, but she left early. Wesley says she has AIDS, which makes me really sad. After the show, we came back in to dance. The club was playing Zion (the booty-shake song from Matrix Reloaded) when we got inside, so I was excited. Wesley and Eric went up on the little stage in the corner to dance, and somehow managed to get me up there too. We all danced up there for about 10-15 minutes, then got some water. I was SO tired! I drank 4 cups of water trying to make my legs work again. Wow. They wore me out! After a bit of shmoozing and such, we left because I was getting really sleepy. I got back in at about 3am.
On Saturday, I rebuilt Qugley’s old cage to become Quigley and Maisie’s new cage. It was hard work to plan and build, but it was done by about 4pm. The bunnies didn’t go into it until about 7pm. They were hiding behind the sofa, scared of all the noise. The cage is now almost 6 feet tall, with 4.5 levels. As you can see in the pictures, the 5th level is only a half level, because I need to get into the top of the cage to clean. It now has a pair of red patio bricks for the bunnies to keep cool on, and some nice grassy mats to lie on and chew up. With 4 whole levels, they should be able to stay out of each other’s way if they need to. They slept in it last night. No fights, but both of them fell off the top level twice. I have to make some guardrails or something to keep them from hurting themselves. As I type this, they’re snuggled together, sleeping on the cool bricks.

The rest of this weekend was fun too. I dyed my hair last night after building the cage. I picked up 2 boxes of dye at Target Friday. It was supposed to be a copper penny red, so I got impatient and did it myself. It came out a lot darker than on the box though, and I got a nice dark auburn. Not what i wanted, but nice anyway. Dad and his wife came up to visit today for lunch. She’s never been out of Ohio before, so she’s having fun this week. It’s been a fun weekend.

Well, Maisie went in for her spay yesterday. I was nervous all day, because rabbits are very sensitive to airway drugs (anesthesia), and there are still problems with them that can be fatal. It’s an easy operation, but some bunnies still die on the tables. I went and dropped her off at 10:30, and they called me at 6:10pm to tell me that she was awake and out of surgery just fine. ::sigh of relief:: My baby girl is fine! The bad news is that whoever I called misquoted me for the price of a spay and neglected to tell me about the exam fee. The exam is $30, the shots are $40, but the spay is actually $75, not $35 like I was told. Arg! That puts the total up to $150, right when I can’t afford it. ::sigh:: I hate money. I have to pay my taxes, I have to pay rent.. etc. I still owe people money that I just don’t have. So, if you were considering being nice to me and sending bunny stuff for my birthday, PLEASE, do so. I’m uber-short on cash.

Well, Maisie is back home safe, but sore. She’s being all careful and slow. I let he rout of the little carrier and she walked slowly to her letterbox and crept into it. She sat there for a few minutes just looking at me, then she crouched down in the box, all scared and hurty. She looked so pitiful that I just had to take a picture. I left her to rest and went back to work. I got home this evening, and she hopped out of the box a bit slower than usual, and slowly stood up on her hind feet (she always does this) until I gave her a cracker. She ate all of the her cracker and both carrots I gave her, but refused to touch her hay or pellets. She then jumped back in the box to lie down some more.

Narg. I hate hormones! This whole week has been craptastic (yeah, you like that word? I thought I made it up, but I was wrong.). I’ve been on my damn period, and so I’ve been moody and over-reactive all week. All this week I’ve either wanted to kill someone with my bare hands or just simply burst into tears. It’s been awful! I almost want to go cry about how crappy this week has been. On top of that, I forgot to pay my damn power bill, so my power got turned off yesterday. ::sigh:: I came home to a very silent house (I usually leave my computer running) and went “SHIT!” and cried. Yeah, it’s been like that all week for me. Craptastic! I’ve got so much I need to do, and it’s just backing up on me. I have to finish calling people about my trip to FL in less than two weeks. I’ll have to see if I can’t borrow a laptop from John’s dad so I can blog while we’re away.

The schedule for the trip is:

May 12: Leave Ga, Drive to Jacksonville. Stay the night in a hotel somewhere.
May 13: Go spend time with my mom’s dad and his wife, then go hunt shells on Jacksonville Beach and putt around town some more. Stay in same hotel.
May 14: Leave Jacksonville, drive to Orlando/Kissimmee to see dad’s dad and sister, Wilma.
May 15: Wilma gets us into Disney world for free because she works there. Spend day at DW. Stay night in Orlando hotel.
May 16: Spend another Free day at DW. Get sunburned to all hell. Maybe go to Gator World. Stay in same hotel.
May 17: Day at Sea World! I’m SO excited about this. Spend night in same hotel.
May 18: Leave Orlando and drive back to Jacksonville to putt around some more. Spend night at same hotel in Jacksonville.
May 19: Leave Jacksonville and drive back to GA. Spend night in own bed!
May 20: REST for the day!

I hope to have some sort of net connection while we’re in the hotels, so I can blog about all kinds of stuff, but I doubt we’ll be so lucky. I also have TONS of photos when I get back. I plan on taking up the whole damn memory card. I would get another one, but I have NO $$. ::sigh::

Money problems continue to plague me. With Maisie here now, I have to scrounge up the cash to get her spayed. She’s hitting puberty right NOW, and she’ll start spraying my walls any day now. Ick. Problem is that rabbits are hard to operate on because of the low drug tolerance. It’s quite easy to kill a rabbit with too much sleepy-meds. Spays are more $ than a ‘tooter’ as well, so I’m looking at about $200 or so. Narg. But, it’ll be worth it if I can find the damn money somewhere.

Well, I have a new addition everyone. I also have a theory. My new addition is Maisie (may-zee), and my theory is that garbage spontaneously generates rabbits. Quigley happened when I was taking out my trash, and this sweet girl happened when I stopped off at a dumpster to play with cats. Well, I thought it was a cat. I had gotten off of work early on Thursday and I was feeling good, so I saw a cat at stopped the car to pet on it for a while (if it’d let me) (you ALL know how much I adore cats). As I neared the dumpster, I realized that the cat was in a cage. As I neared the cat, I notified that the cat was really a rabbit in a cage, overheating in the hot sun. Outraged, I grabbed her, cage and all, and shoved her into the passenger seat of my car. I rolled down all of my windows and sped towards home, hoping to cool her down some. I snatched her out of the car and ran up my stairs, filled her water bottle and turned the fan on her.
Poor thing. There she sat for the better part of an hour, panting and too scared to do anything but stare at me. She eventually peed on the flooring of the cage, so I had to reach in and put some bedding in. She woke up a bit, but she woke up a LOT when I put some hay in. Hay is a staple of a rabbit’s diet, and for her to be eating was a good sign. I spent yesterday and today taking pictures and trying to keep her and Quigley separated. I borrowed a crate from Petropolis and put some shelves in it, and put the whole thing next to Quigley’s cage. He’s intrigued, but she keeps boxing with him, and he’s scared of her. I’m letting them out in tandem now, so the only get to see each other through the cage bars for now. Later I will let then together, once she seems a bit less apt to hit him. Go to the Bunny Album to see more of both Quigley and Maisie.

Well, I’ve opted for Quigley since it was the second most voted for on the poll. I’m sorry everybody that voted for Cadbury, but I knew it’s be shortened to Caddie, and I refuse to call for him with “Caddie, caddie caddie..” around my apartment. So, he’s Quigley. He’s also happy. This morning it’s taken me half an hour to go through the photos and add them because he’s so darn cute it’s really distracting. I finally got his cage done on Sunday after I got back, and today I got a few more photos and created a Bunnies Photo Album in my gallery. You can see the cage and more of Quigley there.

I’ve discovered that he’s really FAST. Like, he gets in these happy moods where he’ll zip around my entire apartment, running under my bed and behind my couch. I have no idea how I’d have caught him if he didn’t just stroll on up to me that day. Yesterday was his first day alone, and he peed in his box just fine. I haven’t had a single accident with him yet, except for the one time he sprayed my wall, but that was Sunday. Marking the territory, I guess. Last night, he got mad at me, which was very amusing. This is my very first bunny, and I’d had him for all of a week now. I’ve had cats all my life, and I’m used to picking them up and holding them. Quigley kicks when I do this unless I support his feet too. I forgot last night and pickd him up to move him without holding his feet up too, and he kicked like crazy. Since he was 4 feet in the air at that point, I held him to me (owch!), then set him on the sofa, where he promptly attacked my telephone and threw it off the couch. I laughed my butt off as he got onto the floor to continue beating up on my phone.