Friday Flash Fiction 55 - Taste This Pickle

"Taste this." She shook a limp pickle spear at his face.
"Ma'am, I'm not going to taste that pickle."
"Where's your manager, you rude young man? These pickles have gone bad. They've lost their sour."
He wiped his glasses and looked at the jar.
"Those'r bread and butter pickles."
"The nerve, selling me bad pickles!"

The inspiration for this 55 comes from a jar of Mt. Olive Baby Kosher Dill pickles that I picked up at Wal Mart. I have been craving the Mt. Olive Kosher Baby Dills with Texas Pete chilies.

I picked up the wrong jar, which was OK. But I took a bite into my pickle and...nothing...it had lost its sour. It has lost that awesome dill pickle flavor that I LOVE. I shook my half eaten baby dill at my husband and said "taste this".  He said, " I am not tasting your pickle".  Pickle lovers, beware! You might just get a jar of bad pickles! And you know, when you NEED a pickle, that can be devastating. How the hell am I supposed to eat a tuna sandwich without a pickle? 

Hmph. First World problems, right...

Look at my side bar there...to the right...see...The Popcorn Fharmacy here in Oklahoma City has a fantastic selection of flavored popcorn. I recommend their Dill Pickle flavored popcorn HIGHLY. They will ship an order, so click on the link and get you a yummy bagful of their mmm mmm good dill pickle popcorn. I also recommend their Vanilla Butternut and Butter Rum! Now I am making myself crave popcorn.

Thank you, G-Man, for being a most excellent Friday Flash Fiction 55 host! xoxoxo, (pickle breath and all!)

As long as the wind blows, the grass grows and the water flows

 As Long as The Wind Blows....

...The Grass Grows...

...And the Water Flows...

My mother-in-law and I went to Carnegie, OK today to take care of some business at the Kiowa Tribal Complex.  We decided to take a side trip to Saddle Mountain and check on the property her grandparents used to own and where she grew up.

The creek had flooded, causing the water to flatten the grasses. This is Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.  The weather in Oklahoma City was stormy when we left, but by the time we outran the rain, Carnegie was sunny and warm with a nice gentle breeze. But, this IS Oklahoma...The saying is, "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes". By the time we took some back-roads to Saddle Mt, the wind was picking up and the temperature dropped. 

The property has been abandoned for while, it needs restoring. And thankfully the weather was still cool enough to keep the snakes in their hidey holes. The grasses are THICK and padded, and TALL, so I did not want to worry about tangling with a snake. The rattlers LOVE hot weather, so I was not worried about them, I was worried about cottonmouths (water moccasins) . Rattlers warn you, cottonmouths come AT YOU. 

This property was an allotment given by the government when they deeded land to the Kiowas. 

I gathered fallen branches and assorted wild grasses for my bunnies. The whole time, I am looking for cottontails. I found none. I did find evidence of a giant bunny...

GIANT Cecotropes...Just kidding. It's probably scat from some varmint. But it DOES look like a giant cecal cluster, right?

Saddle Mountain Baptist Church (trailer), butts up against the Kiowa Tribal cemetery. By the time we got there, which is about 1/2 a mile up the road from the house, the wind was trying to blow us to OZ and we were freezing!  See that little white bowl almost center of the picture? Under that cluster of weeds is a rabbit warren/den.  It's been there for years. It is nice to see they leave water out for the bunnies!

Found some bleached bones and brought them home for my son. You know boys...I believe they are from a deer, but it could have been a big dog. I am ALMOST CERTAIN (pretty certain...) that they are NOT human! Joshua says I be haunted for sure if they ARE human. My husband was joking with Josh about going  with me and his grandmother to Cutthroat Gap, a place where his relatives were slaughtered, beheaded and their heads put into their water buckets. It is supposed to be haunted. Joshua asked WHY he would want to go to such a place and his dad told him, in his best faked Indian (Native American) accent "To gather Medicine". Sheesh...So...if these bones are human, oh what "medicine" that would be! When my husband's great grandfather Walter became a Christian, he took his "medicine" (his assortment of things, for lack of a better word, 'magical') and buried them in an unknown location.  He was worried about the consequences of any of it getting into the wrong hands. Now THAT has to tell you something! What? Don't mess with the supernatural!

These hills are a part of the Wichita Mountain Range in Southwest Oklahoma, Fort Sill area. 

Lots of these wind turbines all over these hills. 

Grass grass grass, wild wheat, etc. 

Mesquite branches, wild wheat and other wild grasses from the property, picked and served up to happy bunnies. Minnie ate some, then she got great big mouthfuls to carry around. She does that. She is weird. She sure loved the branches!

The bright green in the bowl is Sherwood Forest Natural Rabbit Food. It is VERY green and smells like tea!

Dem Bones Dem Bones Dem Dry Bones...

I couldn't catch them, they were so fast, but Joshua was holding that bone in the pen, and they were going nuts, trying to nibble and bite it and drag it out of his hand.

Dem bones dem bones dem dry bones...

...Now hear the word of the Lord!!!

Oh, man, I DO hope those are NOT human bones! And NO, I only put them in there for the picture. They DID want to keep them, though. Silleh Ebil Bunnehs!

As long as the wind blows, the grass grows and water flows, I will love Rabbits.  I even realized that I want my grave marker to be a rabbit! 

Hippity Hoppity Easter's On It....ZOMBIES! (fixed)

UPDATED: I "paraphrased" ZOMBUNNY'S potty mouth statement!!!! 

Great Lent is upon us. This means Easter is not far off. We bunny nuts know what that means. It means that shelters, rescues, and ditches will be overrun with bunnies that are not so cute as the day they were given to some snot nosed kid for a gift. It means baby bunnies who have outlived their five minutes of ooh and ah and cuteness will be chewing on their hutch and cage bars, destroying wires and cords, pooping everywhere, scratching the shit out of furniture and people, and eating eating eating. It means they will be inconvenient little  toss-away creatures that no one cares about anymore. 

Campaigns like Make Mine Chocolate do their best to get the word out that bunnies make for bad gifts, that they are not toys, but real, sentient, willful, living, breathing creatures that require a lot of care and love. Yet every Easter, more and more rabbits are BRED and SOLD specifically for Easter gift-giving. 

I think we Rabbit lovers need to get a little more militant, a little more guerrilla, in our tactics. Let's stop being so damned nice and politic about the truth.  

I love the work by an artist named Byron Rempel. Check out his blog here.   When I commented to him on Google Plus that he needed to have a bunny zombie, he sent his blog link for Zombie Easter Bunny. Does this kick ass or what?! IF ONLY this awesome bunny could hippity hoppity down the bunny trail at Easter, I think we could make some headway in the Make Mine Chocolate campaign!  Chocolate bunnies don't bite back when you nibble on their ears!

Zombunny says "MAKE YOURS CHOCOLATE, MEATBAGS!"

Friday Flash Fiction 55 - 'C' Words

"You know what you are?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me." She replied with a perfectly applied red Chanel sneer. 

"Starts with a 'C', ends with a 'T'. Care to guess?" His whiskey and cigarettes filled her nostrils, making her hate him more.

"Cat?" 

"Close enough." And he kissed her again.

Merci to G-Man and many X's and O's (red, of course) for being a splendidly X'able host...

The Old Man

About four years ago, my good friend Maria died after having a heart attack during dialysis. Her children asked if I would like to adopt her black lab, Simon. Of course I said yes. He is officially Joshua's dog, and they are attached at the brain. Josh made me buy him a bigger bed (from twin to queen) so they could both fit on it comfortably. He had no grey hairs on his muzzle when he came to live with us, but he is getting more and more white hairs by the day. Today the cold was really getting to him. I hate seeing him move slower and slower.  He is still playful and will chase after Spider (our cat) and steal toys from Bug (our baby girl chihuahua) and heaven help the SOB who walks up to Josh and tries to play fight him. But the old man is slowing down and it makes me sad.
My two boys, who normally ignore each other, held each other and cried when we had to put Cochino, our old chow mix, down last summer. He was about thirteen years old and incontinent, deaf, blind and in typical chow fashion, getting mean as hell with every passing day. Simon passing will be devastating for Joshua after losing Chino, who had been with us since Josh was a baby.
Simon has been the best dog we ever had. He is protective, sweet, smart, devoted. I should not mourn him yet, though. I just wanted to tell the world that he is a wonderful companion. I cannot say enough about Labrador Retrievers.  You will never go wrong adopting one and making them a part of your family.

The Almighty Johnsons - Thor is an ASS!

Ok, so I have a HUGE crush on Dean O'Gorman (scroll down), the Kiwi actor who plays Fili in The Hobbit.  That smile kills me. I was watching clips on YouTube of The Almighty Johnsons, the show he stars in as Anders (a sort of god-man-whore-poet), when I got a load of Thor (basically the show is about incarnated Norse gods, strangely enough all happen to be reborn in New Zealand, so...), who is a huge prick. Why? Well, I think that is just his character in the series, however, I think he goes above and beyond your basic every day run of the mill prick-in-a-can. Again, why? He "fucking hate(s) rabbits".

Thor, (Geoffrey Dolan) the rabbit killing, hating peckerhead. Um, his character, not Mr. Dolan himself! Unless he "fucking hate(s) rabbits" in real life...grrrr

Be still my beating heart....THAT DAMNED SMILE!!!

As much as I am crushing on Fili here, there are definitely others crushing harder. I personally would not put up a naked picture of him, even though he has THE cutest butt in the South Pacific, but check out this Tumblr Blog! I have no objections whatsoever to other bloggers putting up naked Dean pics/videos. 

WTF? Tolkien dwarves are not supposed to be HOT! I would have been blissfully ignorant of Dean if not for The Hobbit. Peter Jackson and I are gonna have us a reckoning someday. He's done ruined me...

OK OK OK OK, I got it out of my system. WOO HOO cannot wait til the next two movies come out! 

Oh, yes, I forgot...this blog is about rabbits...nannernanner

Call Out For Help for Bunny In West Virginia

The following is an email received from a post on EtherBun. If anyone can help, email 

swvanimalleague@gmail.com

I did email them about Special Bunny's Cinderella Fund, 
but they might need more 
help than Special Bunny can help with. 
I am sure they have a paypal account or some 
way to get donations via the internet. 
I have also send an email to them asking if they have any way
for donations to be made online. I will certainly update 
this post as information comes in. Personally, I would like
nothing more than to have five quick minutes with the dirtbag
who let this happen to bunny. I bet I could make that five
minutes seem like the longest of their lives. But I can't and
all we can do is what we can do. Let's just get this baby
some help and get him out of his pain!

Hello all,

I am the Secretary of the Southern WV Animal League. Our organization has been approached about possibly taking in an injured rabbit. He is a domestic who was apparently abandoned via roadside and has a hobbled rear leg (Possibly from being clipped by a vehicle or tossed out?) and a fracture between his front incisors. He is able to get around w/ a hobble and he can nibble kale and eat carrot baby food.

We are in the process of getting an intake approved, however as a rescue that generally deals with dogs and cats, bunnies are relatively new territory for us. We currently have bunnies in foster, but none that require medical assistance of this nature. We are a small organization in an economically disadvantaged area relying solely on a network of foster homes and funding is limited. Are there any type of organizations that sponsor rabbits who need urgent vetting? The only one I know of that offers small animal financial assistance is for individual pet owners only.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. If I have posted this in the wrong forum or if there is already a thread covering this topic, I do apologize. I am new here and still learning.

Thank you,

SWVAL Secretary

Thanks for listening, and if any of you help, GOD BLESS YOU. Please join me today in praying for this rabbit and the caregivers at SWVAL!!!!

St.s Melangel and Francis, Holy Unmercenary Physicians and Martyrs, And Most Holy Mother of God, though you know me to be a sinner, though my prayers cannot possibly account for much, I ask you to remember this little rabbit. He has been abandoned and hurt badly, He is in pain and misery.  Ask Christ our God to heal him, to grant the funds for his care and treatment, and ultimately, to find him a home where he will loved and cared for all the days of his life. All of you, holy saints, who have the ear of Christ, please, help this tiny innocent creature crafted by HIs very own hands. What is insignificant to the world is precious to Him, and to us who love these beautiful little creatures. Help him, please, and also remember the good work by his rescuers and patrons, and all who care for God's little creations. 
In the name of Christ, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we ask you, and we commit our lives and one another unto Christ our God, Amen. 

Award From Speedy!

I received this award from my furry, fast nephew, SPEEDY RABBIT in the UK! 

The rules are:

1.  Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you

DONE!

2.  Acknowledge the blogger and link back to them.

DONE!

3.  Answer the 5 simple questions see below.

DONE!

4.  Nominate up to 20 bloggers see below.

• Rabbits Eat Quilts
• Rabbit Food Blog - Sherwood Forest Natural Rabbit Pellets
• Fantastic Furry Friends

5.  Display the award on you blog some where.

DONE!

Here's the five questions:

1.If you could change one thing,what would you change?

I would change everybody's out look on life to a more hopeful and happy one.-copied and pasted Speedy's answer because I love it and agree!!!!!

2.If you could repeat an age what year would it be?

I am pretty happy now, so no regrets!

3.What is one thing that really scares you?

My loved ones in pain

4.What is one dream you have not completed,and do you thing you will be able to complete it?

Law School

5.If you could be some one for a day who would it be?

Head of the CIA, so I could see all their secrets!

Friday Flash Fiction 55 - The Dr. Seuss of the Third Reich

"What are you reading there?"
The boy held the book up for viewing. "Cowboys and Indians."
The Professor grimaced, glaring at the book is if it were slimy. "What nonsense. How will Cowboys and Indians help you succeed in life?" He asked and walked away believing this student was definitely the least likely to succeed.

Hitler would later remark: "I owe to Karl May my first ideas about geography, and the fact that he opened my eyes to the world."

Author Karl May

Source of Photos and Quote HERE

As always, Danke Schoen to Herr G-Man for being a supremely gracious host!

Pumpkin "Soup" for Woolly Rabbits And Their Mates

Woolly and long-coated rabbits are not the only ones that parents need to keep an eye on for wool block. Often, it is their mate that gets a bit stopped up with wool block. Fatty, my Jersey Woolly, NEVER has any issues with fibers in his tummy. But he never grooms himself. Meany and Minnie groom him and themselves. They end up having long "strings of pearls" type of fecal pellets. These are pellets of poops that are attached to each other by strings of rabbit fur.
Minnie is not a woolly breed, but she sheds a lot. Meany is my little Lionhead evil princess and she is OBSESSIVE about grooming and, unfortunately, barbers the other two. What is barbering? Just what it implies. She chews off the fur of the other two rabbits.
Recently, if you read the blog, she had a bout of wool block. Her fecals were ROCK hard, like the stones you find in  bags of beans, misshapen,  tiny, and attached to wool. She was listless and not all that interested in her food, though she would pick at it a little. Well, picking is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. A rabbit should have a very enthusiastic approach to their fresh veg and hay and she did not. Her tum was a bit on the hard side, like a tiny little drum.
For several days, I dosed her with Metacam and Little Tummies (simethicone anti-gas drops for infants) and one of the things I did was give her "soup" every few hours. "Soup" contains extra virgin olive oil, but you could also use coconut oil. Now we are talking about organic, beneficial oils to lubricate the gut, absorb into the wool blockage to get it moving.  DO NOT EVER USE MINERAL OIL.
I have been serving this a few times a week to lubricate their guts to prevent wool block.
Here is my recipe for "Soup":

• One teaspoon pumpkin puree, NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING, but just the plain canned pumpkin puree, organic is best, but not necessary (baby food squash can used in a pinch, but pumpkin is best)
• One teaspoon food grade or pharmacy grade oil, preferably extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, grape seed oil, or canola
• Boiling water, added by the spoonful, very little at  a time, mixing the whole thing until it is the consistency of a cream soup, dripping off the spoon but still coating it a bit. The soup should be very warm. Test it by putting a bit on the inside of your wrist, just like you would milk in a baby bottle. Allow to cool as needed. Soup should be served warm!And it will perfume the air from the warming pumpkin pulp. 
• This should make enough soup for three bunnies to share in a small bowl of shallow plate. 
• IF they won't eat it, and that is unlikely because all rabbits LOVE pumpkin, then add a drop or two of pineapple juice. 
• Soup should be given once a week, followed by a full tummy massage. Just rub your hands up and down their flanks, rub their tummies in a circle, gently tug on their tails out, side to side and up for about five times, GENTLY, like you would their ears. 
• This would be a good time to brush brush brush them. 
• During molting, such as in spring when it warms a bit (be vigilant, bunnies shed and molt at different times of the year, especially woolly breeds) brush every day and give soup twice a week.
• Keep an eye on their poops! If poops start getting smaller, harder, misshapen or they have lots of stringed pearls, be sure to give soup once a day til you see an improvement
• Keep their little vents (butt holes) lubricated with olive oil if they are suffering wool block. You don't want discomfort of fissures, even microscopic ones! Just apply with a cotton tipped applicator. 

********OILS TO AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!!!!!!**************
mineral oil (ok to use topically, such as for cleaning scent glands, but NOT FOR CONSUMPTION)
avocado oil - avocados are BAD BAD BAD FOR RABBITS AND SOME EXOTIC BIRDS!!!!
ANY OTHER OIL THAN WHAT IS MENTIONED IN THE RECIPE!!!!!!!

Of course, remember nothing replaces veterinary care if you suspect wool block! Your baby might need sub-q fluids and pain meds. If you suspect wool block, KEEP BUNNY WARM if their ears are cold!!!!

Join an egroup or forum online about rabbit health and behavior (again, this is NOT to replace a vet!) such as Etherbun on Yahoo Groups (see my side panel for link). You will find a wealth of information in their archives and will able to access experienced rabbit parents and their knowledge.

Friday Flash Fiction 55 - The Picnic Cowboy

High above the mesa, the vultures were circling. They’re coming for me, thought the lost cowboy.  His pony died this morning. He had been without water or food for days. He shamefully began to eat the horse.  

 “Lemonade’s done! Where's that flyswatter? And why do you have the dog’s ear in your mouth?” asked Mom.

Thanks for being the Host with the Most from Coast to Coast, G-Man!

Friday Flash Fiction 55 - Honkytonk Bar Fight Kryptonite

"We are responding to a disturbance."
The floor was littered with broken beer bottles and teeth.
"Everything's fine, officer, as you can see", said the bartender, unplugging the sparking jukebox.
Cowboys and rednecks sat meekly, their hats off, sipping beer through busted lips.
"Playing The Star Spangled Banner always settles these good ole boys down."

Thanks to THE one and only G-Man for hosting!

Waiting Waiting Waiting

I am bored to tears waiting for Tiger to have her babies. Every evening I wrangle her out of her hidey spot and bring her into my room for cuddles, grooming, and baby belly rubs. I like to make the babies mad so they move around and kick me. She just purrs. Is she EVER going to have those kittens?