Friday night

Thursday Leah phoned us and we got to meet and groom two of her horses!  I brushed Jake.  He's a brown horse with the prettiest tail.  It looks like his tail is partly bleached blonde, but it's naturally blonde and brown. Wish my hair looked like that. He moved around a lot though.  I am too shy and I have to practice being more assertive.  Horses will boss you around if they know you're scared of them.  I'm concentrating on not being a-scared.  Heh.  I used first a rubber curry comb which is a rubber oval thing with nubs and they call it a brush.  It loosens up the dirt.  There's a lot of dirt in the coat.  Then I used a brush (which looks like the kind I used to use to wash the tires on my red convertible back in the olden days when I had a red convertible) to  flick the dirt away.  My arm got real tired.

Our son brushed Nike.  She's a Paint.  Paint is a kind of horse with big splats of spots.  She's very pretty.  Black and white.  She had a baby this year so she is a little thin and needs to put on 100 pounds, Leah said.  I saw her stretch out with her two front legs sticking straight out in front of her and her rump in the air just like a dog.  It was so cute!  She also went pee.  You better not be close when a horse goes pee because it makes a huge spot!  As a city girl, I have never been so close to a horse that is relieving itself.  The man who owns the ranch walked right by her and I know he got pee molecules on his pants.  I stepped back a full 30 feet.  I didn't want any specks of horse pee on me, not even invisible ones.  Leah flicked a couple bunny poohs out of the way on the tailgate of the truck while we were talking.  It froze my brain momentarily.  There were chickens and roosters walking everywhere.  Leah saw me walking very slowly.  One step, two step, look around, three step.  She said, "Lil, it's okay.  They won't bother you."  And she was laughing.  I don't know, but I worried they might come peck me or something.  Hey, you never know.  Turns out, they weren't interested in me at all.

Our son will show Nike at the county fair in October.  He will also show two bunnies, a male and a female.  They are meat bunnies, but they won't be sold, plus they are used for breeding.  At the show the judge will feel the haunches and you want to set your bunny on the table in a teardrop shape.  I've never eaten rabbit and I don't think I ever could. I can't say enough about how generous Leah has been with her time and with the animals and supplies.  Incredible.  Ain't nobody in L.A. who would ever give us all this stuff.

She has given our son two bunnies, he got to choose them out of all her rabbits, and he has to prepare them for showing.  That means he needs to handle them a lot to get them used to human handling.  They've been outside at a ranch in a hutch so they're nice, but one is quite edgy about being picked up.  I got scratched a little today picking up the female.  Not bad, but you have to be careful.  You have to grab them by the skin on their back like a cat.  It doesn't hurt them.  Then you have to hurry to put your arm underneath them so their legs won't flail and kick and to make them feel secure.  That's what they do.  Their legs kick like crazy and it makes them mighty hard to hold onto if you're a newbie.  I'm so proud that I've just about mastered picking up and holding a rabbit.  I'd never be doing this if we didn't have a son. 

One time I was at a friend's house and she showed me her pet rabbit in her back yard.  It was huge.  She picked it up by the back of the neck and said, "See!"  She was seemingly proud of the bunny  hanging midair in front of us, but I didn't appreciate what the big deal was.  Now I do!  The bunny let its legs hang free, didn't thrash, and was relaxed and trusting.  He was used to being handled.  He had been given a lot of attention.

So.  We are in rabbit training.  Leah has lent us food, cages, water bottles, food holders, a bag of cedar shavings for bedding, and the rabbits.  Unbelievable.  She and the other rangers are such an encouragement to the youth.

Thursday we missed school because of the orthodontist appointment.  We did shopping in town and didn't get home till 3:00pm.  There's good news and bad news.  The good news is all he needs is braces.  He doesn't need head gear like our eldest did and he doesn't need an expander for the roof of his mouth or teeth pulled like I did.  Just braces.  Just braces - to the tune of $6200.00.  I'm grateful we can get his teeth fixed.  He gets them in two weeks and will have them for a little under two years.

Today was a normal day.  Uneventful.  I was tired because one bunny got the bottom of his cage wet and poor thing was jumping around at 2:15 am because his feet were wet and probably cold.  I went outside and changed his whole bedding.  I startled my husband when I came inside from outside and thought he was going to kill me, but he realized it was me and didn't cold cock me in the nick of time.  I told him three times as he was coming at me, It's just me, It's just me, It's just me!  Yipes.  Good thing he's not a Vietnam Vet!  Then he helped me get the bunny fixed up. He didn't get mad at me either.  At least I know I'm well protected.

The stars outside were incredible.  Son slept right through everything of course.  Homeschooling went swimmingly and at lunch and after school we both looked forward to holding the bunnies.  Son has named them.  Bucephalus for the male (after the story about Alexander The Great's horse that he heard in the movie The Black Stallion) and Talulah for the female, after a bulldog he fell in love with who was with a camper here last week.