Are Those Whiskers Frozen...Or Are You Just Pleased to See Me?

"Yez, you may admire ze magnifizent whiskers....

 Yes, it's snowing again. It was one of those Sunday mornings when you stumble out of bed semi-conscious, open the curtains and fall back into bed from the sheer shock of the blinding whiteness outside. Perfect excuse to bury your head under the covers and sleep another half hour. At least, that's my response to snow.

Snowflakes!

Once I had braced myself with sufficient coffee it was time to venture out and join the bunnies in the back yard, clear the paths and dig out the car. Actually I quite like clearing the snow; it's a nice way to slowly wake up for the day, clearing neat little paths to the garage, the gates, and the footpaths around the section. Top priority is a 'thinking spot' for Punky Muffin and Dumpling to plop their butts; they dont'mind playing in snow but prefer not to sit in it.

Dumpling still gets a kick out of digging in it and was soon covered in snow, his whiskers caked. They don't feel the cold - it only snows between about 3 and -1 degrees - and it's obvious how well insultated they are because flakes landing on the fur are easily shaken off and don't tend to melt, so they stay dry. Here's some pics of my snow bunnies having fun. Enjoy!

Action Bunny flees the scene!

Snow Dumpling, Icy Muffin

It's started snowing. At first it was just little crispy flakes that floated down only to melt as soon as they hit the ground. Then these were followed by larger fluffy crystals that settled and eventually covered everything in a fragile white blanket that crunched under our feet and stuck to the bunnies tails. This has been replaced by harder flakes, driven by a strong wind blowing in from the polar region, dropping temperatures and preventing any further melt. We've heard predictions of up to 20cm falling but so far it's nowhere near that much. 

The bunnies are making the best of it. Actually I don't think Dumpling knows what to make of it...he has only seen snow once before and seems to hate the feel of it clinging to his furry feet. He's sitting now in the garden, a puffed-up ball of disgruntled hair, looking for all the world like a grizzled cossack camping on the Siberian steppes.

Punky Muffin on the other hand is an old hand at dealing with snow, and having shorter hair doesn't become caked as much. You can see her here, fussily licking off the last few flakes that were impudent enough to land on her pristine white coat. How dare they.
As you can see I've put a range of snacks in the winter pavillion to keep them happy and dry but at the moment they prefer to sit in the snow and munch on a big branch I sawed off the apple tree this morning (I hold off pruning my apple trees until the winter to keep the bunnies in snacks throughout the long cold months...a bit unconventional but it doesn't seem to do the trees any harm).
They could always retreat to their hutch which is now winterised with perspex sheeting on all sides and a thick warm layer of soft bedding in which they have hollowed out a snug nest. However that would be like kids volunteering going to bed early and is NOT going to happen. Ever. So don't even suggest it. Just keep feeding us snacks.

Weeding

This has to be the ultimate recycling plan...I pull the weeds out of the garden, the bunnies eat them, then they fertilize the lawn! Punky Muffin and Dumpling are grateful for every bit of greenery at the moment as the lawn is practically a desert. This winter we had almost no snow so the grass was uncharacteristically exposed for the entire time. This meant the bunnies chewed it back down to the roots and beyond. Hence the wire netting in the background; I've put down grass seed and am trying to get it to grow, although the chilly nights aren't helping at all.

After a winter with no greenery they've become used to me going out several times a day with andive leaves, broccolli stems, apple, bits of banana...basically anything I can give them for a bit of variety to pellets and hay. It's reached the point where as soon as the kitchen door opens they line up and start demanding their snack. At least I can cultivate the dandilions for free!

Wind In The Willows..Without the Annoying Toad

Spring is definitely, almost certainly, practically here. The weather is warming up, the birds are singing up a storm, and it's the season to prune the willow trees, which means time to treat the bunnies to one of their favourite snacks. I usually to visit my friend in Vorden around this time of year and bring home a huge pile of willow and apple branches.

Bunnies LOVE to eat these, and since there is absolutely no grass or any sign of edible greenery left in the garden by now, they make a welcome snack, full of juicy sap and with the bark softened from the first weeks of spring growth. If I'm feeling really motivated and have the time I'll make something for the rabbits to play with while they eat, and since it was a quiet weekend they ended up with not one but TWO toys this year.

It keep me busy for a day and a half and my hands are aching, finger tips red and tender and popped blisters dripping gently onto my keyboard as I type. However it was all worth it once I was finished and Punky Muffin and Dumpling were happily munching inside their new toys. The round one was a new effort for me; I will admit that yes, I had something a bit more grandiose and well-porportioned in mind when I first planned it. What was going to be a large round beehive-shaped structure has ended up looking a bit like a pile of cow-poo, but Dumpling loves it neverthe less and is practically invisible once he's happily sitting inside, nibbling on the walls.



'I am ze Master of Disguize...only my muztache can be seen, yez?"



Punky immediately claimed the tunnel; this is the second time I've made one of the these and to be honest I had completely forgotten how much bloody hard work it was to make the first time! However it was nice to spend the day in the garden, endlessly snipping branches into shape while the rabbits stayed companionably close, interested in what I was doing. That's what I tell myself anyway; in reality they were probably circling me in a pissed off temper demanding "Get out of our garden you hairless bi-ped!!"



Get out of my garden or I eat your face!!!



Seeing Double...Or Triple...Or....

Whilst trawling through my emails deleting old posts I came across these two photos from my friend Liesbeth who runs Opvang Franky, a rescue centre for rabbits in Eindhoven. At Christmas she saved 32 rabbits which were destined to be slaughtered for the cooking pot. It was a major operation involving several volunteers and lots of effort. I spent a day with Liesbeth helping to prepare enough hutches and organizing carry cages for them to be collected, and afterwards she sent these photos of the rescued buns. Sadly so far only 1 has been adopted as large, red eyed rabbits are not "in fashion" at the moment. Sixteen have been placed with other shelters, the rest remain in Eindhoven, waiting for a loving home and a new start.
If you are interested in giving these worthy creatures a second chance in life, contact Liesbeth today, by following this link.

And remember, don't ever buy any pets from shops or breeders; always contact you local rescue centres first! They are filled to bursting with every possible pet, from rabbits to chinchilla's, hamsters, cats, guinea pigs, mice, dogs... Buying animals only keeps breeders in business and makes this enormous problem even worse.

Because We Can

Kan u not zee, I iz buzy?

One of the fun things about bunnies is that they are constantly busy, and no matter how domesticated you may think your Flopsy or Coco or Rocco or Dumpling may be, the heart of a wild beast pumps beneath that cute fluffy coat. Spring and Autumn are the busiest seasons as the rabbits instincts kick in to dig a burrow for breeding for the former, or a shelter during the winter in the later. Punky Muffin is a particularly fanatic digger a tthis time of year, takes her projects very seriously. Her first autumn excavation occurred about a month ago; I came home for work to find her crashed out exhausted and filthy on the lawn with what could only be descirbed as a suspiciously satisfied look on her snout. Turns out she'd been digging a tunnel in the sand pit (good bunny, that's why it's there). However after a couple of days of tunneling the tunnel became too deep and long so I filled it in; I didn't want it collapsing on her, or have her get so far down I couldn't get her out again.

Not to be thwarted, she waited until her aching muscles were back to normal then took to one of the borders. It's fascinating thing to watch a rabbit burrowing; this is excavation as an art form, not just digging out dirt in some wild frenzy like, say, a dog would. Being prey animals rabbits seems to hae a built-in instinct to conceal their work. Not a successful strategy in a garden, true, but in the wild it must come in handy.

First the hole is started; frantic digging wth the front feet, and when a small pile has built up between the front legs its flicked out through the back legs to create a long pile behind. Once this pile has started to build up the bunny turns round and uses its front legs to push the pile out flat, spreading the loose dirt in a large fan shape. It repeats this process and keeps spreading the loose dirt out in an increasing radius so the resulting build up is not more than about 3-5 cm deep. I guess in the wild this would make it harder to spot, and it would quickly wash away in rain, disappear into grass and leaves, etc.

Pushing the dirt away with her front feet

As the amount of loose dirt increases, she will alternatively pull dirt towards the edge of the pile with her front feet, and then turn around and push it away and flatten it. Finally, the whole thnig is smoothed down by hopping over it, with those big back feet doing a perfect job.

It's a time consumering process, but if every there was therapy for a rabbit, this must be it. The only problelm is figuring out when it's time to go and piss her off by filling it all in again. Trouble is, I know she'll just go and do the same thing somewhere else until winter arrives...

By the way, one bunny is flat out doing all the work while the other spent most of the time fussing with his hair and 'supervising' - not much equality in the rabbit world!

Magical Cameleon Bunny

Dumpling has surprised us all by changing colour, seemingly overnight. When he arrived he looked like a scruffy mix of breeds that had been splashed with white paint. Now he's grown his winter coat, he looks like...a scruffy mix of breeds without the white paint. His formerly short curly white bits are now long soft grey bits, and he's more uniformly camouflage colour than before.

No need to guess who taught him this trick...

Guilty as charged! Punky Muffin demonstrates her startled "guilty as hell" look.


Who, me??



Well Hello........Dumpling!

As you know, a couple of weeks ago our beloved rabbit Rocco died, passing away in his sleep at the grand old age of 10.5 years. When you have pets you know one day they'll be gone, but with rabbits you also have to accept that you'll have to find a new mate for the remaining bunny fairly quickly too. Rabbits are very social animals who shouldn't be kept alone, and the day after Rocco died we could see that Punky Muffin was very nervous and unsure of the changed situation. I prepared for a trip to Eindhoven to the rabbit rescue centre run by my friend Liesbeth, Opvang Franky, to find a suitable match for our widowed Madam P Muffin.
Fate, however, intervened.
Rocco died on a Wedneday, we buried him in the garden with tears and flowers on Thursday, and on Friday a new rabbit appeared in the garden. You could call it coincidence, or serendipity, or karma...we decided to call it Dumpling.

This little guy is a young buck who was in all likelihood dumped by his owners because they couldn't be bothered arranging for someone to look after him while they went on holiday. One of the next door neighbours kids found him in front of their house, frightened, hungry, thirsty and wondering how he'd gone from family pet to tossed away garbage in the space of a day. Assuming it was one of ours, the neighbour plopped him into the garden to the surprise of Punky Muffin who thankfully decided to make friends rather than attack him. I made enquiries at the vet, local petshop, and posted him on the website for lost and found animals in Holland called Amivedi, but no-one was looking for him.  A wee dumped man, Dumpling seemed the perfect name. It's also what Liesbeth calls the many 'second hand' rabbits she rescues and re-homes every year, the cast-offs of a society that thinks animals are a disposal item to be used for our entertainment until boredom sets in then thrown away under the guise of being 'set free'.  Domestic rabbits can NOT survive in the wild; they are very easy targets for cats, dogs, mean kids, cars, disease, starvation and dehydration. Even if they survive those things there is a good chance the local wild rabbits will attack and kill them to defend their territory and as for the freezing snowy winters....a definite death sentence.
Anyway, as Niels pointed out, we were lucky to have this little guy turn up, and he was extremely lucky to have been rescued in time, so his full name is Lucky Dumpling. Personlly I think it sounds like something you'd order with a side of fried rice from the local Chinese takeway, but he did have a point, so Lucky Dumpling it is. He's settled in nicely and can be seen - now minus his balls - racing around the garden all day and generally creating havoc. He's a very strange mix of colours and textures and clearly there wasn't too much planned parenting going on when he was bred. It looks like he's been held under his armpits and dunked into a glass of milk, and his fur is a mixture of long, short and in-between lengths. However we of course think he's perfect.

Goodbye Rocco, you will be missed

CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Last night our dear bunny Rocco died, having spent ten and a half fluffy, floppy eared and mostly fun-filled days on earth. The last few days he seemed to be a little tired, content to sit in the shade or stretch out in his favourite spot in the hutch and watch the summer showers fall. I'd booked him for a check-up with his vet today, but she didn't get the chance to say goodbye to her "turbo bunny".  After munching away on a piece of apple at dinner time, I went to close up the hutch at around 8pm and found him stretched out in the same place I'd left him, never to snore again.

Never again will we have a chuckle at Rocco having fallen asleep on duty, 'guarding' the hutch and his precious Punky Muffin; 

And she is learning to adapt to life without her dirty old man, still up for it despite being the equivalent of about 110 in human years, I guess. In recent months his efforts didn't amount to much more than a front leg - or sometimes even just an ear - draped over her but in his mind he was still the undisputed stud of the garden;

After all, they have been together for a couple of years and while she wasn't his first love, she was his last.

He was often to be seen trailing after the kids, having figured our early on that small children often leave a trail of tasty treats, and he even managed to steal a peanut butter sandwich from Carl once;

However his main achievement was stealing our hearts, and there are many people who will miss him.

Goodbye old friend. You were much loved.

Here There Be Bunnies...

After all that excitement I need some food!

This must be a bumper year for wild rabbits because we've never had so many bouncing around the neighbourhood. As long as we've lived here there has been a stable local population, and the little pile of bunny poo on our driveway stands testiment to the rubbit who most evenings sits there, presumably intrigued by the scent of our rabbits who by dark are safely locked up in the Bunny Bungalow.

 However the dynamic has changed this spring; perhaps due to an increase in numbers the wild rabbits are becoming bolder, approaching our garden even during daylight hours, which has never happened before. It started a few weeks ago: I was putting Carl to bed when hubby came in and said: "I just walked out to the garage and found a wild rabbit in the hutch!" Initially I thought he was kidding; wild rabbits are (I thought)  too shy of humans to ever come into the garden, let alone hop INTO a rabbit hutch right by our back door. But then I glanced out the second floor window down into the garden and was amazed to see a large wild rabbit making very macho overtures to Punky Muffin, who was behaving for all the world like a love-struck teenager who'se just come face to face with her favourite rock star. She was practically FIZZING with excitement.

Planning to take out the competition...wild Casanova vs Rocco



Now one of the main differences between domestic and wild rabbits is their size. Pet bunnies can be far larger, and I've never had a rabbit who could squeeze more than their head through our fence to nibble on any plants unfortunate enough to grow within nibbling reach. But as I watched this big wild bunny easily squeezed like a ferret through the gate! I grabbed my camera and started clicking. He hopped, as casually as you like, up to Punky Muffin and gave her a quick lick on the nose as if to say "I'll be back for you in a moment cupcake" before heading straight for Rocco. It was pretty clear that he was aiming to take out the competition so I chucked my camera on the bed and raced downstairs to chase away Casanova before poor old blind Rocco, who was first stunned then extremely pissed off that a strange bunny suddenly barged into his territory (and him), ended up in a fight he surely couldn't win.

An hour later emergency fence alterations were in place, with extra netting fitted to hopefully keep out the marauder. Days passed and the wild rabbit never returned so we assumed it was a one-off event.

This morning however, as I was working at the table in the kitchen, my attention was cuaght by Punky. For a mute animal rabbits are surprsing eloquent and her body language was saying as plain as day: "OMG who the hell are YOU??" On the other side of the fence was a juvenile wild bunny, about as big as my fist, hopping back and forwards excitedly. Whether it saw Punky Muffin as a Mummy or a Hot Mama wasn't clear but she was out of her mind with excitement at this new development. I walked out to check it wasn't a pet rabbit that had escaped but as soon as it saw me it took off at the speed of sound to a nearby stand of trees, so it's definitely wild. It was gone too fast to take a photo so I've snapped some of Punky in her hyper-excited state.



"Did ya see him? Did ya see him? Didya? Didya? Didya see that?"



Rocco typically missed the whole thing because he's blind, but did his best to calm down Punky Muffin in the only way he knows how...

"Forget ze boy...only a man can give you ze lurve you need..."

Whether she is in the mood for love or war isn't clear but she's now patrolling the fencline like a doberman, hoping to spot her new acquaintance again. The rabbit fencing is clearly sufficient to keep out the wild bunnies but frankly she's looking a bit disappointed about that.

Spring Has Sprung!

It seemed like it would never happen but suddenly spring has arrived. The grass has greened ever so slightly, crocuses and snowdrops are blooming, and even the daffodils are on the verge of bursting into flower any minute. The wildlife is getting that itching feeling again too; our resident blackbird is once again lining her nest right by the back door, scaring the life out of me whenever I walk past by shooting past horizontally at nose level when I approach the door. Last week I was amazed to see a falcon perched on top of our bird feeding table, only about 4 metres from the window. At first I had a bit of a panic as I thought he was eyeing up Rocco, obliviously muching bird seed that had fallen to the ground below. However given that the rabbit was about 5 times larger than falcon, I'm pretty sure it was actually eyeballing the littel hole at the entrance to the burrow of our resident field mouse, who has hibernated the past few winters at the base of our magnolia tree. I realise this is a specatacularly bad photo but he kept flying away to a nearby tree every time he saw me approaching the window with a camera:

Spring is also the time of year for pruning some trees, and I was lucky to time a visit to my friend in Vorden just when she was having the willows on her farm cut back. Willow branches are utterly delicious - if you happen to be a rabbit - and provide a welcome snack at this time of year when the vegetation has been nibbled to bare dirt after a long winter. So I filled up the back of the car and brought home a load. The bunnies were ecstatic with my offering, less so with my trying to get photos of them eating it.


Monsieur Rocco A. Rabbit says: "Yezz? Can you not zee I am buzy, eating ze willow...enough of your zilly photoz, be gone!"

 In the mean time I've stored the pile in a corner of the garden - having rabbits is not really conducive to tidy gardening anyway - and give them a couple of branches a day to munch through, which keeps them busy and happy. Unless I try to take a photo, of course.


Madam Punky M. Rabbit is NOT AMUSED



Update on Rocco, & the Perfect Winter Pavillion

Firstly thanks to those of you who rang or emailed messages of support for Rocco. The good news is; he's doing fabulously! In fact after the first day he couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, although he was high for a week on painkillers which may explain that. Anyway I appreciated the good wishes and they at least partially compensated for the 125 new grey hairs which appeared overnight. Rocco had his stitches removed on Monday afternoon, and he is healing well. I've just this minute raced outside to take a photo so here he is:

I think his new look makes him look wily and wise, although it has been sorely tempting to put a pirate patch over his eye...
By the way this photo was taken in the bunnies new Winter Pavillion. After last year's cold and snowy winter I wanted to find a good solution for the rabbits this year that would allow them to enjoy their daily activities outside without having the discomfort of dealing with the snow and ice for weeks on end. I think Rocco is too much of a Senior Bun to have to deal with wading through snow, and sometimes last year the fur around his bum seemed to be wet and cold for days. So one afternoon in late November I had a flash of inspiration and sketched up the design for the Winter Pavillion. Our good freind Derek agreed to make it, and even drew it up professionally in 3D Auto Cad to make sure it was perfect!The Pavillion is basically a deep tray with an overhanging roof, raised off the ground to prevent it getting damp. Lower access points have been made on three sides, wheels at one end and a handle at the other make it easy to move, and the generous overhang keeps out snow and rain. With a deep layer of hay it's the perfect place to chill, hang out, and have your ears licked (if you're into that kind of thing). The main thing is, the bunnies LOVE it! Key to the success of the Pavillion I think is that it's open on all sides so they have a 360 degree view (well at least Punky Muffin does because she can see!) to patrol the garden, while still being sheltered from wind and rain. Once the snow started falling they literally spent all day in there, nibbling on snacks like veges or apple branches which I toss in a couple of times a day. If anybody wants the plans on CD, you can have them in excahnge for a donation to the Opvang Franky rabbit rescue; just send me an email via the comments button below.
With Rocco being blind (even before he lost his right eye), he relies on his sense of smell to navigate around the garden and the snow seems to mask many of the familiar scents; the first snowy day I saw him standing bewildered and a bit lost, nose in the air, trying to figure out where he was. So each day I shovelled the 'bunny trails' clear for him, keeping his regular circuit free of snow; the perimieter of the garden, his favourite pee spot, access to either side of the Winter Pavillion and to the ivy plant he's determined to kill by chewing through its ankles before spring. With these paths kept clear he would happy hop around, stretching his legs doing his circuit before snuggling back into the pavillion. We could almost hear him happily "bumbly bumbly bumbly" - ing to himself as he went along. As I tell my friends, my rabbits are not spoilt; they are much loved.

A VERY Bad Day

Yesterday was supposed to be such a nice day. The kids and I discovered that there's a massive indoor playground about half an hour away on the A1 heading towards Germany and planned to spend the day there; me with a pile of books and my iPod, them running around and yelling themselves hoarse in the pirate-themed 'play paradise'.

We were getting ready to go, and in the back of my mind it registered that I hadn't seen Rocco outside for a while. As we got our stuff together I glanced out a few times, checking the places he would normally be around 10am and decided to have a quick check before jumping in the car. I found him in the hutch with his back to the door. Opening up the lid I said " hey Rocco..." then noticed two drops of blood in the straw bedding. Carefully scooping him up, I looked down and spotted a red mass protruding from his head where his right eye should be. It was one of those horrendous moments, when you feel like your guts have just dropped into your shoes while your brain implodes against the top of your skull. My heartbeat went from 60 to 120 in about 0.5 of a second as Crisis Mode set in. I quickly put him back down, flicked the door of the hutch shut in case he tried to leave and ran inside. Grabbing the phone I rang the vet clinic; they were just about to shut. After telling them I would be there in less than 5 minutes with an emergency I yelled at the kids to either come with me or stay here but to decide RIGHT NOW. Within a minute I had Rocco in the car and we were at the vet within 2 more minutes.

At first it looked hopeful; as the vet first cleaned the wound with saline, the red mass turned out to be a blood clot. However as she rinsed further we both went "Oh!" as we simultaneously saw what was clearly the lens of the eye crumpled on his lower eye lid. The eyeball was ruptured. The eye would have to be surgically removed and the lids stitched permanently shut if he was to survive.

It's at moments like this that I start mentally kicking myself in the head as I try not to get emotional, not to let feelings take over from logic and crowding the space in my head as critical split-second decisions need to be made. The vet and her assistant were both on their own time; in theory I should bring Rocco back on Monday (never an option) or find the emergency vet in the region. However without hesitation she asked her assistant if she would work overtime and the answer was yes.

There was no question about whether or not to operate. Rocco has been practically blind in both eyes anyway for a long time due to cataracts, and if he survived the operation his quality of life would not be impaired; he would not be in any pain or further handicapped. However the big danger was the anaesthetic. Rocco is 'officially' (according to the vet) the oldest rabbit in our town, and at 9 years 7 months, the oldest one she has ever seen. Surviving the operation was a huge risk for him, but one we had to take. There simply wasn't another option. As he hunched on the examination table, motionlessly leaning his head in the palm of my hand, I wondered if this was goodbye. He never made a noise the entire time, but feeling that small weight of him in my hand, leaning for support in a silent plea for help, I was acutely aware that his life was literally in the balance. Gently putting him back into the cage, I tried not to think that I may never get to pat him again and telling him I'd see him soon, I left.

There followed 90 nail-biting minutes while I waited at home for the phone call. I filled the time frantically trying to find what he had poked his eye on, and setting up a large cage in the lounge for him to recover in for the next week or so. He will have to be separated from Punky Muffin until the stitches come out (PLEASE don't let them un-bond again!) and for the first night he would need extra heating to prevent post-operative shock setting in.

Finally the phone rang; he had survived and was starting to wake up. I collected him gratefully, only just resisting the temptation to crush the vet in a huge hug. Gingerly laying him in his temporary home in the lounge, he flopped groggily into the soft bedding and gradully woke up over the next four hours or so. By late afternoon he was starting to nibble vegetables, and he was more or less fully awake by late evening. This morning he was feeling a bit lethargic but since the weather was sunny and all the snow has melted in the past couple of days I let him out - closely supervised - to spend time on the grass with Punky Muffin. He immediately cheered up, gave himself a thorough groom and started trying to hump her. He is truly unbelievable.

The reason I'm posting these pictures is so that you can see that while small animals do get seriously hurt despite our best attempts to keep them safe, rapid veterinary help can do wonders. Don't give up on them. The odds of Rocco not waking up after surgery were high, but he deserved the chance, and he sailed through. He's got some recovering to do but with continued TLC he should make a full recovery and be back harassing his girlfriend within 8 or 9 days. Once the swelling goes down and his fur grows back he won't look like he's just gone 3 rounds with Mike Tyson. The point is our pets deserve every chance we can give them to lead long, healthy lives.

Now It's MINE!

The other day the kids were happily messing about outside and, as usual, didn't bother to put away their toys when they finished as it was starting to get dark. Next time I looked out the window, look who had claimed the mini wheelbarrow as hers!

What's That??

So I was sitting at the table having lunch with the kids a couple of days ago, when a flash of movement caught my eye. What was that? There was something strange...on the table outside....


At first when I stealthily approached, the foreign being darted down onto the bench and cunningly froze beneath the arm rest, doing a perfect impression of a piece of wood...

Punky Muffin! Once she realised she'd been busted she hopped back up onto the table and continued to eat the flowers there. This is her trade mark "yeah, whatEVER" look:

You might think the logical thing to do would be to move the bench so that she can't jump up on the table any more. Only thing is, it's much more fun watching her eat the flowers than it is looking at the flowers. So, go for it Punky!

It's Official; Spring Has Sprung

Yes, I'm finally going to stop whining about the weather and enjoy the incredible explosion of life that is spring in Europe. It's my favourite time of year here, when the ice and freezing winds finally subside and a balmier breeze teases the flowers out of the ground, the birds out of hiding and suddenly the world is a much better and brighter place.

It's also a busy time of year for rabbits. No, I'm not talking about THAT, mine are all happily desexed although would you believe it they do still get a bit frisky. However I'm talking about the joys of digging holes (preferably in the middle of the lawn), leaping and frolicking (and sneaking into the house every ten minutes so our day is interrupted by shouts of 'Mum, there's a rabbit under the table!) and moulting. Endless, endless moulting in clouds of fluffy bunny hair that drifts through the garden and sticks to my clothes.

Being smooth-haired, Punky Muffin is a very efficient moulter and doesn't really seem to need any help. However Rocco, with his dense 3-5cm long hair needs all the help he can get and we usually spend a few hours on the lawn together in spring and autumn while I try to brush/comb/trim the excess hair and any knots away.

The good news is, bunny hair is the perfect material for making birds nests. After a half hour session this week which resulted in a veritable mountain of white fluff on the lawn, I stood inside and watched as sparrows, blackbirds, wrens and finches dived down to fill their beaks before swooping off to their little construction sites. It's a nice feeling to imagine all the local baby birds hatching into cosy warm nests lined with velvety soft, white fur. Now that's recycling!