Little Lost Rabbit

Last fall, my husband was feeding some of our outdoor rabbits.  He felt movement at his feet as some of the extra rabbit pellets, hay and other goodies were falling from the containers in his hands.  He looked down and thought at first that a rabbit had escaped.  Down by his sandals, he felt and saw a tiny little black, gray and brown ball of fur moving about his feet.  He put down the food containers and went to pick up this little dark fluff that was beginning to display small rabbit ears!  He picked up the little bunny and quickly looked her over, just to make sure it wasn't one of ours, not being sure if I may have sneaked one in on him! 

The little ball of fluff seemed healthy, but hungry. Little Ball of Fluff was put in a carrier with a generous bowl of food, hay and water which the furball went right after voraciously. The little bunny seemed like it might be a Lion-head breed or Jersey Wooly by looks, or perhaps a combination. This rabbit was a sweet little creature, affectionate and seemingly grateful for the food and shelter at the moment. I checked her to see what her gender was revealing she was a female.  I took a walk around my neighborhood and nearby streets to see if anyone was missing a rabbit.  Behind my backyard, divided by a huge wood stockade fence, is a park with a playground, picnic area, a stream , baseball fields, tennis courts, and basketball court.  Needless to say, this area covers a vast amount of land.  There are some known predators in the area as well. I was trying to figure out if that is the direction the bunny may have come from. It didn't seem possible.  There weren't too many rabbit owners in the area. 

It was so amazing to me and to my husband that this little bunny found her way to our yard. I wonder if she could smell the bunnies we had, or the food and hay.  It really was quite a miracle that she found a safe haven in us out of other possibilities. Then I started thinking, that perhaps she was some type of gift, escaping a bad situation.

I was quickly becoming very attached to this bunny and hoping selfishly no one would claim her.  She was sweet and playful. I did bring her outside to see if my neighbor, who loved and sometimes rescued animals, had seen anyone looking for a bunny or if Little Ball of Fluff looked familiar to him.  No luck. My neighbor can be talkative, but I didn't mind standing in-between our houses listening to some of his extra talking because of the sweet little bunny I was holding, cuddling and trying to make feel safe.

Only through the corner of my eye, did I see a mini-van driving slowly by, but kept going.  Several more talkative minutes later did the mini-van pull up to near where my neighbor and I were standing. The woman in the passengers seat rolled down her window and asked if we saw or heard anyone mention anything about a little bunny in the area.  My heart sank as I walked closer and a little boy stuck his nose to the glass of the rear passenger side window. He looked very happy, opened the window and cried out, "Sable!!!".

He came out and took the bunny from my hands without saying a word to me. The woman explained that they'd been looking for days and they lived far on the other side of the huge park. I informed the woman of the bunny being fed, watered and taken care of. She didn't seem to care and rolled up her window. She gave a slight look as they pulled away.

As happy as I was that the little boy found his bunny, I felt saddened that the bunny was gone for I had fallen in love quickly. A thank you maybe would have helped me feel a little better too.  The family's rudeness was left not as noticed because of the trust that little bunny put in trying out our home area to find safety and refuge in. It was an honor to be chosen by the Little Lost Rabbit.



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Things Don't Always Go As Planned...But that's okay! and some News!

Hello,

I wanted this post in the chronology of posts here to be one that was a follow-up to my anticipation of the trip to the Durham Fair, a wonderful agricultural fair. Well, I went and had a wonderful time...But...my camera case disappeared with equipment I have for downloading from camera to the computer to the blog.  I waited a couple of days after the fair hoping that the people that run the fair would tell me someone turned it in. Well, it didn't happen...to keep a long story short.

I will post later this week about the fair when that becomes a possibility (when I can add the photos!).  Although John Lennon is credited with saying it, I know the basic idea of the saying is an older one- Life is what happens, while you're busy making plans.  So, I wanted to share with you that there is going to be an all exclusive interview with Flat Bonnie herself!  This interview will be soon and I will give you notice! There is also a possibility of a follow-up interview with "Flat-Bonnie's CareTaker". That part is still in the works. I will let you know as soon as I can.  For a look at Flat Bonnie, she is featured in a former blog post.

I am also trying to set up some interviews with various groups and people who would be interest. I will let you know about these as they come up also! If you have any suggestions for people or groups you'd like to see on here, please let me know! If there is perhaps something you want to know more about, please let me know!
You can write about it in the comments or send me an e-mail at maryellen1163@gmail.com.  Please give me your imput.

Just as I had to adjust to life's mishaps, I thought I would leave by sharing this thought. Things don't always go as planned. Sometimes we have to look at it as a gift, an opportunity.  Sometimes things turn out much more pleasant or better than we anticipated or sometimes things go nothing like we want. We can have pleasant surprises or what seems like disappointments. One thing I have learned is that there is often a lesson in there somewhere. Not necessarily a moral lesson, but even some small insight that can be big later on.  I personally think some of my best lessons learned came from plans that didn't work out. It doesn't always hit you right away, but not until sometime later.It has helped me keep a more even and balanced look at things.

I hope that you have more of those gifts in those moments when you do experience them.
All the best,
Mary Ellen
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Looking forward to the Durham Fair...even in all the rain!

Durham Fair 2009

Hello again! 

Just wanted to share my enthusiasm for the Durham Fair, which is the largest Agricultural Fair in Connecticut!

I wrote about it a couple of years ago and wanted to share how excited I am this year to be going also. It makes me feel like a little kid!  I enjoy the feel of a simpler day and age, lots of homemade foods (local groups do a lot of fundraiser booths, unlike many other fairs!) as well as the regular fare of the fair.  I love the agricultural stuff such as big giant 300 pound  pumpkins and seeing wool being spun into yarn. It is supposed to rain every day of the fair and , in fact, all next week after the fair is over. But this won't dampen my spirits.  Funny, but one gets so distracted that one hardly notices the weather. There are so many tents and buildings that there is lots of shelter.  I don't remember the rain from other years it rained, but I do remember that it did rain because I remember talking about it.  One year, I do recall, they had to pull up the tents, put down huge pieces of gravel, to help promote drainage because there was that much torrential rain.

There is so much to enjoy. There are many educational things at this fair ranging from farmland trusts, to wildlife rehabilitation, to various crafts, to far-out stuff as well. There's the musical acts and vendors of crafts, vinyl siding and other stuff I don't need. There's also people that sell really odd curiousities and neat things as well. Also, I have been paid a dollar or two to sit and take a survey at a booth for Yale University Research. Geuss that is one way that get those "random samples" I studied about in Methods of Social Research and Research Methods classes.

There's big name musical acts and smaller venues as well.  I was excited to REO Speedwagon (not high quality picture on video) last year This year is Blues Traveler and K.C. and the Sunshine Band. All really neat stuff.  You really get a lot of bang for your buck. Granted some of the food can get costly, so I'll probably eat something before I go and pick out something that's a treat there that I don't get too often.  For fifteen dollars I'm getting a lot of entertainment and experiences in one place. It's a pretty good deal compared to the cost of a movie. I can spend as much or little time there as I want.  If I don't like one thing, I can go somewhere else and not feel disappointed as if I wasted any money.

I really look forward to sharing some of my experiences with you from there. Here is a link to the post I wrote a couple of years ago about the fair with some pictures.  There is a cute video near the end of it also with some baby pigs and their mom dealing with getting enough food.  Enjoy.

Please share with me about fairs that you go to. I would love to hear about exciting or interesting things below in the comments section!

I hope you join me again soon. Thanks for dropping by!
Mary Ellen

A Peek at A Few of the Rabbits at Rabbit Hill Inn

Hello,
If you are a Bunn-a-holic like myself, you are in for a treat of getting a peek of some of the rabbits from the Rabbit Hill Inn in Lower Waterford, Vermont.  Almost anything rabbit-related in the form of adornment or decoration can be found in almost every nook and cranny of every room of the Inn. Everything about Rabbit Hill Inn is magical anyway. The memories of my stay there in August will stay with me forever. I am not getting paid to say this or anything else positive about this place. I will post about my actual stay there soon-it is probably going to be prime season for staying there very soon for leaf-peeping season.  Today, I will show you some of the bunnies I saw.

Even after a week of staying there, I know I did not catch all of those mystical long-earred creature representations there. I remember commenting to Brian Mulcahy (one of the innkeepers), once, there about how I keep finding more there every time I turn around.  He just smiled and said, "There are a lot and they keep multiplying!".  The truth is- they do!  Several figurines and stuffed animals have names on their bottoms or on a tag of people who were so inspired to give a gift of a bunny to the inn. These are everywhere!  On shelves, tables, at meals (even rabbit-shaped butter pats!), beds, on the walls (wait til you see the wallpaper photo!), statues, benches, in the sidewalk!  I even gave one of my prized rabbits to this multiplying collection.

Well, here they are: The ones I actually caught on film! Click on any photo to see it larger!

Bunny in the sidewalk up entryway

The black silhouette bunny that greeted us after a wearily long trip

A pewter bunny napkin ring

Click to enlarge

See all the bunnies at the buffet part of breakfast

Rabbit picture behind lantern

Rabbit under deer

A gift shop area for bunn-a-holics

A gift shop area for bunn-a-holics

A gift shop area for bunn-a-holics

A gift shop area for bunn-a-holics w/creamers and other great bunny things

A Lace Bunny

Cutout Bunnies

Rabbit Illustration

Watering Can

The Wallpaper!

The Garden Bunny Bench

Bunny to right of Dining Room Fireplace

Another view of the bunny bench.

Top bunny we "gifted" to Rabbit Hill Inn &a friend!

Bunny next to the Rabbit Hill Inn Sign

A copy of children's book "Rabbit Hill"

Some of my bunnies look like this.

Pewter Napkin Ring on it's own.

One of my favorites

A food mold of some sort?

I do have some more which I may show in a future post when sharing about the wonderful stay there, but I hope you enjoyed meeting some of the multitudes of multipliers! Going through that place everyday made it difficult to not stop and look at a bunny.  It is a bunderful place to visit and stay, even if you don't care one way or the other about bunnies.

Please share what you think about the bunnies or if you stayed there in the comments section. Do you have a rabbit collection or collection of anything that reflects a passion? Have you ever encountered a collection of rabbits somewhere else?  I would love to hear your story or comment! Please share in the comments below!

Hope you are having a Hoppy Day!
Mary Ellen
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What do you think?

Hello there,
I have been trying to make the blog layout more pleasant to look at and perhaps a bit easier to navigate. At this moment, it is a work in progress, but I would love your feedback on how to not only make it look better, but give you more of what you would be interested in what you might like to see here or any ideas for improvement. Right now I am just starting to jazz it up a bit, but not go overboard. I welcome most anything you, the reader, would have to say. Please share in the comments what you think or tweet me at @CuddleLop.

This is a pretty short post today. Thanks for coming to read this blog. I hope you do enjoy your stays here. Please let me know would make your stay here most pleasant!
Thanks,
Mary Ellen

Some of my Favorite Things about my Companion Bunnies...

Hello there,

I appreciate your hopping over this way again. I think there are universal things that most people share and appreciate in living with pet bunnies.  Here are some of mine. I don't have photos for many, but I will share when I do have something. These are not in any particular order...

1) The wiggling nose....I can tell a lot now by their wiggling nose. One major one is that they are still a live when they are sleeping quite still. The speed of their nose shows how interested or alert they are to something near by! There is something about that constantly wiggling nose that even when they annoy me, it can charm my socks off. They don't really wiggle their nose at will, it is part of their breathing process.  I love how they reject me when they turn their nose up at me, disapprovingly, when I have on some type of lotion on my hands they don't like!

2) Nose/head bonks...I love to ignore those little buns and they like to ignore me as a game. They approach you, tap you with their head or nose and either take off like tagging you and you are "it" or they bonk you looking for petting, food, other attention.

3) What we call "tubes" in our house....Cardboard oatmeal canisters (the natural brownish gray kind with the label removed), purchased ones for bunnies or other tube shaped things they can fit themselves in.  One bunny we had named Rusty used to somehow always get herself caught in the oatmeal canisters.(She would chew off the ends). Her head and front paws would be hanging out one end of the canister and her tail and rear legs would be sticking out the end. She would kind of squeal in the female bunny sort of way when being chased by a male for some action. She wouldn't panic but would let us know we had to remove that dachshund-like body out of her tube. Usually this meant keeping her calm and getting the jaws of life (a pair of scissors). She usually had no problem sitting still while we got her out.


Other bunnies we had/have also have loved tubes. We've had prolific chewers and then the one English Lop who would sleep with and groom his tube, hump it, chase it and then chew it to smithereens. We kept a good supply of those on hand. One favorite thing we liked watching him do is putting it on his head and moving all around with it.

Tribble, a lionhead likes to chew his to smithereens and squeeze into them.

Tribble in one of his purchased Tubes.

Butterscotch in his Log with ear sticking out hole in the top!

Butterscotch, who is our infamous buzzing bunny about to be neutered, seems to feel very secure in his "log" which he somehow squeezes himself into when it's downtime in his cage. He likes to squeeze himself in and push his nose through his cage bars to observe what's going on around him. Strangely enough, he will only do it when the cage door is closed, not when its open or if he's out of the cage running around or resting.

Butterscotch in regular nestled into Log mode!

4) Playing bunnies in any form is wonderful. Love to see them run around, do binkies, play tag with me or each other (see nose bonks above), even tip their food dishes over when switched to "healthier diets". They are so interactive, loving, loyal and social. What is there not to love?
I have some more photos which I have to transfer to digital form and will update this for you and let you know!
I can come up with more and sometime I will, but I think I took up enough of your time for now and thank you for joining me.  If you have or ever had bunnies, please tell me what you love about them. Please follow this page and use the comments section below. I would love to hear what you have to say!

Thanks for stopping by!
Mary Ellen
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Lighting History Took Place at the Rabbit Hill Inn...a neat story

Tin Smith at Old Sturbridge Village

Hello there,
Thanks again for joining us. If this is your first time, welcome! Glad you are here! Hope your visit is enjoyable.

As many of you may know, my husband and I spent a wonderful and magical second honeymoon at the Rabbit Hill Inn in northeastern Vermont in August.  It has a great history which is briefly described on their website.  The story I am going to discuss is something I learned there, where they have a more involved history written out with many pictures  for the guests to look through in one of the very friendly and comfortable common rooms.

One of the stories goes to the effect of that when the ballroom was built in the mid 1800s, they were going to open it with a dance ball extravaganza.  It seems no expense was spared and beautiful chandeliers were ordered from Europe.  Within a certain time frame close to the grand opening of the ballroom with this lavish party that was supposed to take place, these expensive European-crafted chandeliers didn't seem like they were going to appear on time.  Well, going to Yankee ingenuity, they had chandeliers locally crafted from tin.  They were liked so much by the people who attended the ball that the owners decided to keep them. Kind of like the business phrase, "You snooze, you lose" for the imported lighting.

One of these tin chandeliers is still in existence today on the grounds. I was so intrigued by the story and being that guests are quite encouraged to explore the grounds, my husband and I set about to find it. Well, that we did, but I won't tell where-so if you have the opportunity to go to Rabbit Hill Inn, you can look for yourself. I do provide a picture and much more insight into it though here! I did some research on lighting from Old Sturbridge Village (a living history museum) in Massachusetts. The time period they portray reflects much of the time frames of the Rabbit Hill Inn history.  There is some neat stuff coming up here!

Here is the remaining tin chandelier that once hung with similar ones at Rabbit Hill Inn in the ballroom.

Rabbit Hill Inn ballroom chandelier

 You can click on these photos to see them larger. Of course these would have used candles  and probably would have had some type of rope or cord to lower and raise them for lighting the candles, as well as for adjusting the height of the chandelier for whatever practical purposes they would have had then.

Rabbit Hill Inn ballroom chandelier

The chandelier turned out more sophisticated looking than I thought it would be. I did think that the tin may have looked dull at the time though and wondered about it. Also, I had to realize that I was looking at it from the point of view of my lifetime and not what it would have looked like to the people who only knew candle light and simpler things.  Also, how many everyday common people would have been used to the multiple candles in a grand ballroom, which probably had other things to help set off the lighting such as a few mirrors. Candlelight adds such a nice aura to an occasion also! But at Sturbridge Village, I discovered more!

Reproduction chandelier crafted at Sturbridge Village tinshop.

In the tinsmith shop, I saw a chandelier there which was no where as elaborate as this chandelier .It was a reproduction which was crafted by the tinsmith.  It also wasn't shiny like the one at Rabbit Hill Inn.  Click on the picture above to see a bigger view.  I told the tinsmith about the Rabbit Hill chandelier story and he pointed out that tin is very shiny when new. See the lanterns in the picture below and how shiny they are!
Those are new! Imagine the Rabbit Hill chandeliers being that shiny new and having the candlelight reflect off of them! Must have been very pretty!

See how shiny these new lanterns are!

A View of the Tinshop

Just a bit more insight from a lighting history display at Old Sturbridge Village.
The person who started Old Sturbridge Village in the 1920s collected all types of lighting which is now on a display at the village. I included photos of some of the lighting that come from around the time period of Rabbit Hill Inn.  Also are some original tin chandeliers which definitely look they are not as well preserved as the one at Rabbit Hill Inn.  And last there is a photo of an image taken from what a ball would have looked like in Europe in that time frame. Click on any photo to see a larger view.

Other early lighting from similar time period made of wood and metal.

Early tin chandelier in center

A smaller tin authentic tin chandelier 

Last but not least, you can see an image of how lighting may looked if they used the fancy European chandeliers at Rabbit Hill Inn. The next photo is of an image they took from a ball taking place in Europe. You may find that the time period is somewhat different than at Rabbit Hill Inn and Old Sturbridge Village, but it gives the basic idea. I suggest that you click on this picture to see the detail better because there was some reflection on the image from my camera flash. If I can get back there I will take a better shot and post it here.

I'd like to thank you for joining me on this little journey through history. I love looking at things trying to see how things were through the eyes of the people, who lived the history, in their everyday lives.

Hope you are having a wonderful day. Please come back again. I would love your comments. If you can add to this in any way please feel free to let me know.  I want to make any posts like this accurate and more interesting.  If you like this blog, please feel free to follow it or share it!

Thank you,
Mary Ellen