It makes me want to cry!
When I look at my blog I want to cry these day because our babies rabbits are no longer L. We had a fantastic family holiday in London - some of the 500+ pictures we took can be seen HERE - don't worry I only uploaded about 60, just to give a flavour.
Just before we went away Beth (mummy rabbit) gave birth to yet another litter - yes Mr Rosie had done his thing before we got them separated so it seems - but she only had one baby so we feared it would not survive. When we left it was two days old and seemed OK although Beth had become a bit 'nippy' and didn't seem to want to let us anywhere near the other babies to let them out into the run. The day after we left my friend texted me to say that the little one had died and should she bury it - which she dutifully did under the tree at the back of the garden. But then it got worse! On the Friday morning H arrived to feed the rabbits to find Beth's hutch open and empty. She found Beth in the garage and managed to put back home, but she could see no sign of the babies. She texted me and put up 'missing' posters - just in case, but we feared the worst (i.e the ginger tom that hangs around too much for my liking and/or Beth rattling her bottle enough to loosen the hutch door). We returned home on the Tuesday and the first thing we all wanted to do was find the rabbits. I went on a quick hunt round the garden and sure enough found the remains of three under the trees at the back - I cried and the children did too then. Later that night I picked up what I could (more to stop the encouragement of vermin) and the next morning we said our goodbyes! It was very sad - they were SO tame, so well loved and SOOO cute and cuddly. We were really looking forward to sending them off to good homes on our return from holiday. These were the last pictures I took;
Blueberry
The whole clan.
Liquorice (Joel's favourite)
Make A Tombstone MemorialAs it all ended so sadly we think we will breed the rabbits again - more for the children's sake, although some of the homes they were going to have now already gone and bought rabbits elsewhere - there were children waiting for them L, so we'd need to find some more interested homes for them.
As you can see, the grey was named Blueberry in the end as his shade was apparently Blue-grey, so it worked!
Other than that sadness, we had a great holiday and now it's all done and dusted and we're back to school. Had a tiring but OK week getting back into the swing of things. My schedule for the year is no less busy, but hopefully a little less intense than it has been in the past. We are aiming to have Mon-Weds as 'book' based 'normals' days (that is txtbk/wkbk - maths, English, science, etc…) and Thurs as a non-book day (that is all the extra curricular stuff) like art, music, French, IT etc… Also every third week will be an 'activity' week where we lay aside all books of the 'normals' kind and focus on a one week project or read together lots - that kind of thing, all of which has often been neglected here through over commitment of precious time. So this year I'm aiming to MAKE room for it even if it means a little less of the 'normals'! Hand in hand with that idea we are only doing two days of maths and two days of formal 'English' work - the kids are at least up with their peers, if not about year ahead, so I shouldn't feel under any pressure to hassle them silly when it comes to these things - which I know I too often do. This is 'chill' year - well - maybe! It will be if the kids can play by the rules, follow the instructions they are given and keep my life as simple as I plan for it to be - so it sounds like it might not be so chilled as I might hope for!!
