>She is stealing my heart. Sadie the new little bunny is weaseling her way — no, poor choice of words — she’s convincing us all to keep her. Most important of all, she’s convincing the Peanut bunny that she’s going to be his friend. She hasn’t sat still for a picture yet.

Sadie is not a willing model, as the top picture shows. When I learn to use this camera better, maybe I’ll catch her on the run. She also has lovely dark eyes, but I kept getting red-eye in the pictures. The photo manager software took out the entire eye pigment along with the red. Where’s the Visine when I need it?

>That’s what the subject line read on my email last Friday afternoon. I immediately wondered what he’d done and why he might need to resort to flattery.

Here’s the rest:
“A bunny was the pet-saver segment (on the noon news) today. Sadie is 2 1/2 yrs old; same species as Tiny; family was moving and had to give her up; was an indoor family style bunny; more history yet to come from the shelter. She’s sitting on my desk here waiting for me to bring her home. I’ve got her for the weekend on a “trial” basis.
(Please don’t kill me)”

Ever since Beast died, the little Tiny one has seemed lonely. We’ve moved him into the house, but he and Peanut (the house bunny) didn’t hit it off. We gave up and moved Tiny into Amigo’s bedroom so he could roam the upstairs while Peanut roams the first floor. When we introduced the lovely Sadie, Tiny would have nothing to do with her, getting all territorial and feisty and resistant to having a new friend. We were surprised; Tiny has never been an “only” bunny. He’s always had Beast at his side. Since Tiny wouldn’t even give her a chance, we were discouraged. We set Sadie’s cage in the dining room.
Were we ever surprised when Peanut, our aggressive and often anti-social bunny, came over and sniffed at her. Sadie poked her head out of the cage, and they nuzzled. They’ve had a few moments of agitation, mostly setting limits for one another, but Sadie has allowed Peanut to be dominant bunny and has even shared her food with him. He has been more than tolerant, even friendly in his own furry little way. They began getting acquainted little by little, and we felt we could allow them to “hang out” in the dining room as long as someone was there to supervise.
Well, it’s Monday, and we’ve decided to extend the trial period for the remainder of the week. This has potential.
And Sadie’s awfully cute.

>
The Beast died today.

Here’s a happy memory picture — El Grande hugging Beast when we visited La Petite in her college dorm room. Despite his fearsome appearance and size, Beast was the most mellow, relaxed, even laziest animal you could ever imagine. He was our first bunny. He had developed some health problems in the last several months with loss of muscle tone due to kidney malfunction, among others. At age 10 (what’s that in rabbit years? don’t know exactly) he was getting to the end of his life expectancy, so when he could not move his legs this morning, it was a signal that he was at the end.

Beast was friendly as can be. He liked everyone, and everyone liked him. We used to bring him upstairs at bedtime to snuggle with El Grande. Beast could also shed like a trooper; we called it “Power Shedding.” If I’d kept track of the number of lint brushes we wore out over this bunny….

He would eat almost anything we put in front of him. In fact, he managed to eat big leaves from the garden broccoli plants today, even while ill. What a treat! We have home video of Beast as a baby bunny eating a wild carrot with long, long greens and inhaling it like spaghetti. Now Tiny, his little bitty friend, won’t have to gobble to get his fill. He can actually save some carrots for later! Tiny is lonely tonight, so he is living temporarily in El Grande’s room. We’ll make sure he gets lots of attention from the humans to help him adjust to his new status.

Beast was La Petite’s first pet; she did the research and built the first cage with her dad’s help. She loves rabbits and is a very caring pet owner. Beast always knew he was loved. She even handled the dirty work of cleaning Beast when his muscle tone got too weak to keep himself rabbit-immaculate.

Beast is buried in the wild section of our garden, close to his old friend Cora. The little marker has been repaired at least once since we buried the first one; maybe the glue will hold this time. 🙂