Apple Branches!i

Not too many apple trees grow here in Queens. Even if they did, I probably wouldn't feed anything grown in the city to my bunnies, considering the kind of air those plants have been breathing.

But we LOVE apple branches!

And the ones we've bought places and online just don't have the same appeal as the real deal.

So we were very excited to hear that our friend Alice over at Potentially Nervous found a new batch of apple branches near her new West Coast home!

The box arrived in the mail Monday night. When I got home from my internship at 1am last night, I cracked open the box. I was nervous. These were much slimmer than the ones we had gotten last time. Would the buns still be interested?

I offered a fistful on the floor, then held one out to Biffy.

He ate it like a piece of spaghetti (or in rabbit terms, a piece of hay).

When I got up this morning, only remnants were left over. So I replenished.

Biffy prefers me to hold out each piece for him, and when they get too small to be of much interest to him, he throws them around like a toy.

And Sogna? She doesn't care. She just wants to eat! In true Sogna form.

(I did not weave the heart-shaped basket in the photo above. It's made of willow. I bought it over a year ago, but for some reason they only chewed the top off of it then never touched it again).

I think this is a great fiber-rich snack/toy, especially these days when shedding season is in full swing. While Sogna sheds heavily and almost constantly, she gets "feathers," so I know when she needs some de-furring. In fact, we call her a ragamuffin. And she's pretty cooperative about being petted, plucked, and tolerates some brushing in very small doses with lots of pets mixed in.

Biff on the other hand... you would never know just by looking at him that he's shedding in the least. But run your hand over his body (if he'll let you, he's more of a head/face-scratch kind of bun), and clumps of fur come out. Seems like they come out of nowhere. I tried to brush him this morning because he needs it desperately. The mission was a massive failure. For my efforts I will go to work trying to explain away four deep, parallel gashes on my collarbone.

Hope everyone is staying cool.

Where have we been?!

We're back! Jon and I had a wonderful trip. We took some great pictures, but I seem to have misplaced the adapter to plug the camera into the computer to upload pictures, so I can't show you any.

The Sogna was a perfect angel at Mima and Pops' house, and didn't dig in the litter box once. She has since resumed her usual activities. As some of you predicted, Sogna did win the hearts of my parents. How can you not love a bunny who sits at the door of an 8 foot x-pen all day for someone to come and pet her?? I'm told Biff was increasingly aloof as the week went on, and didn't really let anyone pet him for that whole week. Even after we brought the bunnies back home, it took him a couple of days for him to return to his normal (still grumpy) self.

It has been WILD ever since we got back. We returned on May 27th, and I'm only just getting back onto the blogosphere now! I started my internship the week after we returned, and now in addition to my day job, I intern from 6 or 7 until midnight. That alone would be incredibly exhausting, but on top of that the volume of work at the day job has gotten RIDICULOUS!

Less than a week after we got back, and Jon came home from work to find this:

Now I know my posts are getting a little bit redundant with all the bunstruction, but what happened here is kind of amazing. In case you can't tell, that stuff all over the floor in the entrance to our apartment in the above picture is Yesterday's News litter. And shoes. Both litter and shoes are kept securely in the closet to the right of the door.

Notice anything unusual?

The closet door is not open.

The door doesn't quite close properly, and you can see the weight on the floor is there to make sure the rabbits don't wedge their faces between the door and the wall and push it open. They must have squirmed their way in there, torn up the bag of litter, and somehow dug out each and every bit of the litter, and dragged out the shoes, getting them past this big door obstacle in their way.

Mind boggling, isn't it? Are you impressed yet?

I am SO sorry that I have neglected all of my blog reading with all of the madness at work lately, although I'm sure it has hurt me more than it has hurt you. I'm going to go try to start catching up now.

Hope you have all been doing fabulously well!!!