Simon and River discover an umbrella.

Two bunnies ponder what exactly it is that they're looking at.  It's wet and fun to run around, but it just appeared out of nowhere!  Further investigation was needed.  Sadly, whenever one of them attempted a taste-test, they'd get in trouble.  It will have to remain a mystery.

Simon making River's fur look fabulous!

Simon has decided that it is cleaning time.  River is patiently tolerating it for now.

Tired of the impromptu bath, River hops away to play with some toys.  Simon disagrees with bath-time being over (I can only assume he thinks her fur is just atrocious).  Two minutes later, Simon is still licking the same spot.  You'd think he'd have dry mouth by now, but he's still going strong!

At this point, River is resigned to the fact that Simon isn't going to stop licking her head until all of her fur is wet with bunny hork and sticking up in all directions.  Perhaps Simon really just wants to be a hare stylist when he grows up.  Yeah, sorry about the pun but I couldn't help myself after seeing the spiky up-do he gave River.

Turn about is fair play!  River is far more A.D.D. when it comes to grooming Simon.  She cleaned his fur for all of 10 seconds before getting distracted by the flashy-thing in my hands and trying to crawl up on my lap to investigate.  No pics for that one because she tried to lick the camera lens and I had to get it out of her overly-curious reach.

Hey! Excuse you!

River is so happy that she doesn't care that she's using Simon's butt to launch off into her binky.  Simon looks slightly insulted.

Constant vigilance takes its toll.

Simon is fretting about River exploring in the kitchen--the one place where he can't go due to the slippery floor.  He just hovers at the end of the carpet and paces back and forth until River realizes he isn't with her and hops back to him.  Simon usually acts a bit sulky with an oblivious River and gives her this look as if to say, "Took you long enough!"

All that constant vigilance has taken its toll and Simon is in the process of recharging.  River is still trying to work out how to open our bedroom door.  She's also wondering why Simon doesn't find the kitchen nearly as interesting as she does (there are sooo many doors in the kitchen and who knows what's behind them).  Simon is probably just happy that River is where he can see her without getting up.  A big brother's job is never done.

Thank you all for visiting this blog!  I hope you have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!

Cheshire bunny's nap time.

If you look closely, it's almost like she's smiling!  This is how River looks right before her head tips all the way back as she naps in her litter box.  Sometimes it'll jerk her awake, but usually she just keeps on napping with her ears flopped out like propellers and her mouth open.  She is a relaxed little bun!

Run away! Run away!

Simon scared himself with the vertical blinds.  Apparently, he didn't expect them to swing back on him if they were in the 'shut' position.  Poor little fella bolted after he was bonked in the nose by one of the slats.

A picture of innocence.

We weren't doing anything wrong...well, anything you can prove. 

I always worry when I see this 'butter wouldn't melt' look on their faces.  It's a look that screams that they're plotting some sort of mischief--like a clandestine mission to invade the back of the entertainment center, perhaps?  Chaos and Mayhem may rise again!

I told you I could fit!

This is when we discovered that bunnies are 95% fur.  River was already comfortably inside the Coke box when Simon decided to join the party.

Simon and River's reunion.

Okay, before you click the play button I should apologize for one instance of my potty mouth and a good deal of bunny on bunny head humping (however funny we found it to be).  This is the first time we've had multiple bunnies at one time and we are complete newbies when it comes to bunny bonding/reunions.  I've read about how to go about introductions and know that the humping is a display of dominance or control that bunnies do to figure out the balance of power in their relationships with one another.  I would step in and separate them whenever I felt that one was being too vigorous or forceful and always made sure that the more submissive bun had the option to escape the other.  For anyone new to this blog, both Simon and River were neutered/spayed 4 weeks ago and this is the amount of time that their Vet told us to wait before allowing them to have contact with one another.  If nothing else, you should get a pretty good laugh towards the end--we certainly did!

After they tired of the head humping, they either played tag or explored the apartment.  Here, they're discovering that they both like the vertical blinds.

They're a bit sulky after an argument about who holds the deed for the bunny condo.

Simon has some boundary issues to work out.  River is like, "Hey, that's my cage!"

After pulling Simon out of River's cage, we find River in a huff and ignoring Simon.  Simon is pretending that he isn't bothered by River ignoring him and is trying to look like he's ignoring her right back.  I'm not sure how he thinks that's a good idea.

Well, they seem to have settled their differences for now and are happily grooming one another.  Overall, I'd say that their reunion went rather well.  It'll still be a while before I trust them in the same cage together, but they're making progress.

Thank you all for visiting and I hope you have a great weekend!  I'll be back on Monday.

Simon loves shoes.

We aren't really sure where Simon's fascination with shoes came from.  It was amusing the first time he decided to stick his head inside one of my husband's running shoes-the look on his face as he snorted and stuck his tongue out was priceless!  Too bad I didn't have my camera on me for that one.  Now, he's just content to nuzzle the laces and chin the heels of them to mark them as his.

He has amassed quite the shoe collection even if he can't wear them.  I caught him chinning a pair of my shoes here and he gave me this look as if to say, "These are mine too...you gotta problem with that?"  I'm just glad that he has never tried to make a light snack out of the laces.  I guess even bunnies have to have a hobby!

Bunnies at play.

Simon is making great time on his obstacle course!  He's headed for a personal best.

Not to be out-done, River jumps some imaginary obstacles to try to rack up more points.  I don't think she cares about the rules of Simon's game.

River the Explorer

What kind of shenanigans can I get into while the little human isn't looking?  Oh, I know...I'll explore behind the entertainment center where they keep all those tasty wires!

How did she know I'd jump up here?!  That was totally worth getting in trouble for!

It's annoying how she keeps catching me.  Why can't she understand how completely awesome it is back there?!  She must be jealous she can't climb back there herself.  Maybe there's a better way to get back there without her seeing me.

Hmm...stupid box fan is in the way.

Okay, well that was just embarrassing...she's laughing at me now.  How was I supposed to know that the back of this part was solid?!

You're a worthy adversary, but you can't watch me while you clean my cage. Tomorrow, the back of the entertainment center will be mine!

River scared the heck out of me the other day while I was cleaning her cage out.  I glanced up and couldn't see her anywhere and then I heard a rustling and a thump as she knocked over a photo album on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center.  I think I broke a land-speed record bolting over to the entertainment center to pull out the photo albums and scoop River up before she discovered what electricity tasted like.  I ended up with a little dust bunny who promptly sneezed on me and stuck her tongue out as if she just sampled something gross (thankfully, the wires were intact).  I wasn't sure how she got back there, so I decided to watch her to see the route she took.  She became a furry little boomerang, immediately trying to get back there.  I snapped these pics as I thwarted her efforts.  I believe I'll have to bring the baby gate out of retirement for this little explorer.

Simon the Uncertain

Oh, what is that?!  Better creep up on it.

Yep, still scary from this angle too.

More new stuff!  I'll creep up on them too...the vertical blinds should protect me or provide a useful distraction if the big blue things attack.

Day 2...it has gained a flap of some kind and looks different...still uncertain.

 The big blue things seem to be gone, but they might be hiding outside.  I'll creep up to the door just to make sure.  Nature is scary too.

Poor Simon was having a rough time of it with all of the new changes to his environment just after the big power outage we had--empty coolers being dried out, bottled water, the sound of crickets and frogs outside.  He has to be the most cautious bunny we've ever had.  He even does his creeping up thing on toys he's had for months if you do something like rearrange where they're placed during playtime.

Oh, the problems of the 1% buns.

The 1% buns can't decide whether to take the yacht or the private jet to Martha's Vineyard this year.

This is how I imagine things will play out if when Simon and River conquer the world.  On that note, I hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!

That's not an oat!

Poor Simon!  He's starting to realize the hazards of scavenging--not all that's white is an oat.

I'm pretty sure that he just spat out a piece of bedding.  By the closed eyes and bunny tongue, I can only assume that it had to have tasted spectacularly foul.

River "helping" me clean her cage.

River decided to make the pine chip bag her newest toy.

At this point, River's thinking, "Oh, sweet!  I can climb right in through this opening at the top...then I can kick all of the litter out--just like I try to do in my litter box!"  I had to scoop her out of the bag before she got much further inside so she wouldn't suffocate herself.  The pine chip bag can't possibly be that interesting.

She got a bit sulky with me after that and decided that if she couldn't climb into the pine chip bag, that I couldn't have the litter scoop.  Here she is laying on top of it and the bag it's stored in.

Ah-ha!  You can't sneak up on me from behind...I'll lay on it this way.  It's mine now!

Well, I have to give her points for tenacity.  If she couldn't climb into or lay on top of the pine chip bag or the litter scoop bag, she decided to try and climb into the one that had the funkified litter.  I set it on top of her cage after her first attempt and here she is plotting a way to thwart my efforts.

How can they sleep like that?!

Don't let the open eye fool you-River is sleeping hard right now.  I have no idea how she can fall asleep laying half-in and half-out of her litter box like that.  You'd think that no support on the front end would cause her to tip forward and face-plant into her paper towel roll.  The edge of the litter box has got to be digging into her ribs and I have absolutely no idea where her other front paw is.

Not to be outdone, we have Simon sleeping on his food dish and sprawled over the side of his litter box.  He has already finished what was in the bowl and I've never taken a dish of food away from him, so there's no need to guard it by sleeping on it.  I did get a chuckle out of the one paw dangling over the litter box, though it does look as if he's about to roll over onto his back given how unstable that position is.  I had to rouse him shortly after this was taken because I didn't want a repeat of the involuntary trancing experience like what River did to herself.

I can only assume that this evening's play time was particularly strenuous so they both needed a power nap afterward.  I think they see it as a challenge to find all of the different places and positions they can nap in because it isn't as if they don't have the entire rest of their cages to comfortably flop down in.  Bunnies are mysterious little creatures!

Simon and the un-bunny.

Simon makes first contact with the elusive un-bunny.  The un-bunny is the chief guardian of the land under the furniture.  One of the un-bunny's great talents is the ability to appear out of nowhere to guard the main pass between what is known as the couch and loveseat.  Simon is understandably wary for the un-bunny shows no weakness and holds sway over its vast dominion with an iron paw.

 Simon has been reading his Bun Tzu...a tactical retreat is sometimes the best course of action.

We have yet to figure out why Simon is so afraid of the bunny plushies, but they definitely keep him on the straight and narrow when it comes to preventing him from going somewhere we don't want him to.

Pardon my mess!

Simon is doing a bit of bunny condo remodeling.  We're not quite sure what style he's going for, but he's enthusiastic about whatever it is.  He looks a bit derpy in this pic and it made me chuckle.  I don't think he expected the piece of cardboard to come free like it did and he almost went ass over teakettle with the force he was pulling it with.  I snapped the pic as he corrected himself and was looking around like, "Did anyone just see that?  Why does she always catch me doing something embarrassing on camera?!"

I also wanted to thank everyone who has visited the blog this week.  I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!

Simon and River watch TV.

I snapped this pic of River watching TV the other day.  She was so engrossed in the flashing colors that she kept leaning back as time went on until she tipped herself over backwards.  At least she landed on something soft.  She worries us sometimes when she does stuff like that.  Earlier this week, she was inspecting the top of her cage while sitting on her hind legs and looked up and back a bit too far and tipped over backwards into the side wall of her cage, which was good that she didn't fall, but bad in that she unintentionally tranced herself (she froze in the position she tipped backwards in complete with her little feet sticking out in front of her).  Simon was watching her at the time and just looked over to me with his little mouth hanging open and eyes wide as if to say, "Why isn't she moving?!  We can do that?!  Help my sister!"  I was on my way over to the cage when gravity took over and she slid to the side enough to rouse herself from her statue-like state.  I can only imagine that doing that must be a very trippy experience for a bunny because she just sat there and had a 'whoa!' look on her face (similar to Ted getting his mind blown in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure).  She was back to bouncing around and cleaning a few seconds later--no harm, no foul. 

We're less worried about Simon because he tends to keep all four feet firmly planted--even while watching TV.  After watching his sister become a living statue, he's a bit less willing to stand on his hind legs now.  Poor little guy was more traumatized than his sister after that experience!

Happy 4th of July!

Things could have gone a very different way for our country.

I hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Simon and River's recovery and sibling rivalry.

Here's a pic of River that I took on her first outing after her spay.  She scared my husband and me because she acted as if she didn't just have surgery two days prior.  She was running, bouncing around, and standing up like she is here.  We only let her run around for 5 minutes before herding her back into her cage for fear of her overdoing it.  You can see where they shaved her tummy and the spot where they put the surgical glue-poor little girl has two red bruise stripes on either side of the incision from where they clamped her open to do the surgery.  She's doing great and should be able to share a cage with Simon in another 3 weeks after they both fully recover and their hormones stabilize.

Here's a pic of Simon that I took a few days after his neuter.  He seems to have become quite the cuddle-bug since the surgery.  He'll move his litter box around to get me to come over and pretty much does anything he can to get me to scoop up his front paws so he can lick my hand.  He'll even start to lean out of the cage to lick my nose and forehead letting his whiskers tickle my face.  I've lost count of the times he's gotten bunny hork on my glasses!  He's developing a fascination with my glasses that I hope doesn't progress into him attempting to steal them off of my face.  Given how bad my eyesight is, a bystander would probably laugh their butt off watching me play blind-man's-bluff around the living room chasing after the fuzzy black and orange blur that Simon would appear to be.  He's recovering quickly from the surgery and acts even more loving than his old self. 

What I find funny is that River seems to be a bit jealous of the lack of constant Simon attention that she had prior to the neuter (considering that she'd ignore him about 70% of the time, who would've guessed that she actually craved the constant adoration he heaped upon her).  Whenever she sees Simon licking my hand, she takes the initiative to try to gain my attention by mimicking Simon so I end up being tag-teamed by bunnies--one hand holding one of them up and the other through the bars of the other's cage to prevent them from flipping their litter box.  She's even starting to lick at my hand after I scoop her front paws up and give her the hand signal for "no" for trying to flip the litter box.  They're turning it into a game of sibling rivalry for who can get more of the female human's attention (as though I don't always immediately go over to their sibling's cage to give them a noogie after petting the other one).  Never a dull moment with these two!

Hot cross buns.

We did not have a great weekend.  Our power went out not too long after Friday's post and didn't come back up until late Sunday afternoon.  Needless to say, Simon and River didn't appreciate 100F (37.8C) temperatures and high humidity for two days straight.  Oh yeah, we also discovered that ice and hotel rooms are amazingly hard to come by when the local power company tells its 380,000 customers without power that it would be a few days to a week before their power is back.  Here's a photographic and cinematic look at how we spent our weekend.

Here's a pic my husband took of a tree outside of our apartment complex that was struck by lightening.  This is the closest any of us have come to Zeus' wrath (and we're perfectly fine with that).

Here's River getting cozy with her personal air conditioner.  She wonders how we've forgotten how to make the air nice and cool like it usually is.

Here's Simon wondering the same, but waiting patiently until we remember again.

Here's a video I took while attempting to cool the bunnies down with one of those hand-held battery operated fans that UPS gave away as some type of marketing thing.  "What can Brown do for you?" is the slogan that appears in lights as it's operating.  I think the consensus of all involved is to give us our air conditioning back.  No such luck, sadly.  We also discovered that Simon is not a fan of candle light because it makes the shadows all scary.

When morning came and felt just as hot and humid as the evening prior, we decided to pack up the bunnies in the car to use the air conditioning to help cool them down.  This is the first time since their ill-fated trip to the vet that they've had to be in the travel cages.  I was amazed that a tap on the rim on the cage or saying "in" was all it took to get them both in.

River kind of ate the flash on this one.  Oops!  She looks like she's asking, "I don't have anything else the Vet wants, do I?!"

Sadly, we couldn't stay in the car forever.  We took out the bedding and just gave them both towels to help them be cooler in their cages.

Yep, everyone was very glad that the hard-working repair crews managed to get the power back up when they did and that we didn't have to wait until July 6 at 11pm like they had initially estimated.

My heart goes out to anyone still without power in this heat and humidity.  Hailing from the Midwest, we definitely saw our share of weather like this, but it never hung around for more than a week at best.  The local motto was, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes."  Where we grew up, if there were sunny and cloudless skies as you parked your car and went into the store, it'd be a downpour as you walked out--to this day, people here give us weird looks because we always roll up the windows on a perfectly fine day as we exit the car.  I readily admit to being a baby when it comes to hot and humid weather!  I tip my hat to those of you who live in the deep South who consider this normal.