Mr. Bun Bun

Losing a pet is not easy no matter what type it is. We love our bunnies and their little personalities. When we welcomed three rabbits into our home about two and a half years ago we had no idea the journey we would go on. We have seen 8 new bunnies birthed and nurse and grow hair and open their eyes. Baby bunnies are just the cutest. We raised a handicapped bunny from birth, giving it special baths and therapy trying to strength her little deformed legs. We have watched ALL of our bunnies take their very first romp in the grass and kick their legs up in excitement. Before we adopted the original three, they had lived in a cage their whole lives and had never even run let alone romp in the grass. Over the past 2.5 years, we have loved and hugged and learned so many things about these delicate little creatures.

Yesterday we noticed that Mr. Bun Bun wasn't his normal perky self. He normally loves a good head scratch and immediately starts eating just about anything I bring him, apples, carrots, basil, spinach, etc. In the summer heat, we always put out frozen water bottles for our bunnies. Our bunnies live outside in a hutch but have complete protection from the elements. Mr. Bun Bun liked to sit right next to the water bottles and that's where he was all day yesterday. We brought him inside thinking that if he was perhaps overheated, the air conditioning would cool him off. We immediately noticed he wasn't responding to even his favorites treat or drinking any water at all. After forcing him to drink water and still no response, we knew the outcome did not look good. The closest emergency vet didn't see rabbits and our vet was closed since it was after hours. We started reading every possibility of what could possibility be wrong. We quickly found out that it could be a number of things from heat stroke to an infection of some sort. We read in several sources we could give him infant medicine so we went to Walgreens to buy some. Several hours passed and Mr. Bun Bun was no different. Wobbly and unstable, not eating, no response, teething grinding (a sign of pain), and leaning up against a wall for support.

We said our good-byes while we took turns holding him and talking about all the good memories we have of him because we knew his passing was inevitable at this point. We didn't think he would make it through the night because he was declining rapidly.

Mr. Bun Bun was definitely loved. He may have been "just a rabbit" to some, but we gave that rabbit a name, a home and loved him while he was with us. I know that while he was with us we gave him the best. In the short time we had him he lived life to the fullest.

• He romped in the grass for the first time and quite frequently :)
• He was in a home that loved him and not just in a cage waiting to be bred or sold
• He had a girlfriend. It's true. Tiana and Mr. Bun Bun bonded instantly and were inseparable. 
• He had a child. Tiana and Bun Bun did manage to escape and go on their honeymoon. A month later, Tiana gave birth to Nadia. :)

All in all, Mr. Bun Bun, you were our favorite. Honestly, he was. We will miss you, but we are glad you were in our lives. In a horrible world with tragedies happening daily, sometimes I feel silly to be sad over a bunny. But in our world, he was worth mourning. We may never know why you left us, but we are glad you were here. 

Let's catch up, shall we?

Hi, friends, It's been a while, has it not? I keep thinking I should update this little blog of ours and then life takes over. Photo sessions, dinners, family functions, ballgames and well, just life in general all take priority...but the one thing I love about this blog is how it helps me to remember the little things about life. So I am, once again, going to do my best to blog regularly, at least just for our little family so I can look back one day and remember all of the little things in life that are worth remembering.

Here's what has been going on in the past few days..weeks...months:

My life pretty much consists of this:

bunnies.

cleaning up bunny poop.

dog and cat hair.

feeding the herd. 

drinking coffee. 

editing pictures. 

taking pictures. 

thinking about taking pictures.
trying to make some new friends in Ruston. :)

lately, watching the Gilmore Girls. 

texting my husband to buy more bunny, dog or cat food.
cheering on the Bulldogs. Go DAWGS! 

oh, and I did get to travel to some pretty cool places in the last month.

Bunnies...oh, the bunnies. My lovely husband had a moment of weakness after we shot our Easter mini sessions at our home this past Spring. We 'rented' the rabbits and thoroughly enjoyed playing with them. We used them for our sessions with the children but when it was time to take them back to their owner, we just couldn't do it. So we "rescued" them to give them a better life. We wanted them to have more of a life than just sitting in a cage all...and for the most part, they do...but in short, they have taken over our lives. This summer was basically spent trying to figure out their housing situation...building hutches, building ramps, building fences...expensive fences. Bunnies are a lot of work if you are taking care of them properly...and I'm still not convinced we are. ha. While we are doing are best, I'm not sure that bunnies and dogs can cohabitate. This summer, we experienced what rabbit pregnancy, nesting and birthing was like. There were two litters born to one of our rabbits, Tiana (named by my nieces). One litter was born on Memorial Day weekend with only one rabbit, Nadia. The other litter born in late July with SEVEN rabbits...and I'm pretty sure she's pregnant yet AGAIN. We literally can not keep the male and female rabbits a part. So we're taking care of that problem this week and getting Mr. Bun Bun neutered this week. We have definitely learned a lot about bunnies in the last 6 to 8 months. They are snuggly and really do make good pets if you have the time, resources and probably no dogs. We won't get rid of the rabbits we have now because I've grown attached and have provided them a great home, but I doubt I'll purposefully go out and get anymore anytime soon. In the meantime, anyone want a baby bunny? :) No, seriously. I'm pretty sure we will be having more pretty soon and I'm writing this in stone. WE WILL NOT BE KEEPING ANY MORE RABBITS. Although, they are pretty darn cute, are they not? :)

Tiana, the momma

When I'm not cleaning out bunny cages, feeding dogs or cats, you can find me in my little home office editing pictures. Being a full time photographer here in Ruston, I spend a lot of time in my home office. I shoot about 2 to 3 days a week and edit 4 to 5 days a week. At least one of those days, I edit in bed with a bag of popcorn, watching my latest obsession. The past few weeks it's been Gilmore Girls. I TRY to take a day off every week or at least a half day off, but most of the time it ends up being an hour off here and there. But I don't complain because I have a flexible schedule that allows me to do that and I'm working my dream job currently. I am able to get up and go throw a load of laundry on or check on my dogs every hour or so, or even go for a walk as the sun in setting. I know that I am lucky and I don't, for a second, take that for granted. 

Lately, it's just me and Harry hanging out in my office. Harold is my new office kitty that we recently adopted from one of my best friends. He usually sits right in front of me while I edit to try his best to prevent me from editing so I'll pet him instead. Most days, if the weather is nice, I'll open my office door, which leads to outside, and he sunbathes. 

Sir Harold aka Harry

My husband, Buie, has a home office as well, but it's on the complete opposite side of the house so we really don't disturb each other too much. He is still in graduate school and, for the most part, loving most of his classes. He is not working in the traditional since because he is working with ME! :) He really is a great photographer, and he has surprised me with his talent. All of the weddings I have shot this year, he has been right beside me, second shooting for me. I'm definitely a proud wife. He is also my errand boy but what husband isn't, am I right? ;)

Fall is in full swing in Louisiana which means there is barely a chill in the air and if you look really hard you might see some pretty colored leaves but probably not. If I sound bitter, it's only because I spent 10 days traveling to the Pacific Northwest then a week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. October was an absolutely amazing time of traveling, but I'll save that for another blog post. There is way too much to tell for this post. I must get back to editing. 

See you soon!

Lessons Learned:: Good-Bye, Hopper

 It pained me to type these words yesterday on my Instagram account: "Buie & I are mourning the loss of our sweet Hopper tonight. We think she may have had a heart attack after being chased by our dogs. Rescuing animals, whether dogs or rabbits, means so much to us. We take it hard when one of ours passes, especially before it's time. This time, it was avoidable and we take full responsibility but it doesn't make it any less devastating. It make us more aware. It reminds us that taking care of these rescued animals is a full time job. One gate left open or one time I forget to check one thing and it could be a fatal mistake. In Hopper's case, it was. I'm sorry, Hopper. We'll never forget you. I'm sorry you had to sacrifice your life for me to learn a lesson."

This was definitely a tough mistake to make. It's easy to say accidents happen but the truth is, this situation could have been avoided. I was giving our baby bun bun a bath so I put all of the dogs outside. B went to the bathroom so he wasn't watching the dogs and neither was I. The other three rabbits were safe and secure on our sunporch (so we thought). The only thing separating the rabbits from their natural predator was a flimsy screen door which we have been meaning to replace for months now. Our dogs have been outside a hundred times with the bunnies on the porch. They whine like they want to play and scratch on the door as if to say, I want to come in. In my naive mind, I have even thought..."maybe they could be friends one day...just maybe." But we didn't dare let them alone in the same space. 

When I was finished bathing baby bun bun, I walked into our living room and saw our sunporch screen door wide open. My heart sank. I ran back around to our bedroom back door to call for the dogs and surprisingly they came immediately. They came bounding in muddy and sweaty and extremely hyper. I shut them in the bedroom and closed the door.

I hesitated inside as I RAN to the sunporch to account for all four bunnies. Tiana, Mr. Bun Bun, and baby bun bun who was still in my arms and wet from her bath, were all accounted for. At this time, I screamed for Buie who was coming out of the bathroom. "I can't find Hopper! The dogs got in the sunporch and I can't find Hopper!" Buie was, of course, calm and collected as I became more and more frazzled. For such an optimistic person, I expected the worst this time. Three hyper, playful dogs don't just leave a bunny (a live one) and come inside when called the first time, not even the most obedient dogs, which mine are not. I knew that the only reason they would come inside so quickly is that they thing that they were playing with...was not so much fun to play with anymore...and there was only one reason for that. I shuddered at the thought of it.

Buie was the first to find her in the lower part of our yard. Lifeless. She was dead. I immediately started crying. He checked her out, assuming he would find her mangled. Besides some loose fur scattered around the grass, Hopper looked the same, just still...like she was asleep. Our best guess is that our dogs wanted to have a romp with her and they literally scared her to death. Rabbits are delicate little creatures and they are known to have heart attacks if they get scared. Poor Hopper. 

Buie found a nice spot to bury her on the other side of the fence, so that the dogs wouldn't disturb her. We both shed a few tears and said a few nice words about her. We let the other three rabbits smell and examine her lifeless body. We thought this would help them understand what happened and if not, then it at least helped us.  Tiana and her were buddies. I'm sad her friend is gone. 

We Had a Baby....Bun Bun!

In my last post I mentioned that we adopted three rabbits. With the help of our nieces and nephews, we named them Mr. Bun Bun, Tiana and Hopper. We have thoroughly enjoyed having them around and have learned a lot about bunnies. Actually I have been keeping a list of things we have learned about our bun buns. I may share the list in another post. They are fascinating creatures, including their ability to procreate. You know the crude expression "doing it like rabbits?" Well, I totally understand why it was created. One of the interesting facts about rabbits is that they are a "breed-at-will" mammal, meaning they are "ready to go" at anytime. We found this out the hard way. 

Mr. Bun Bun = the culprit 

On April 22 this was a Facebook entry: 

'So far we are FAILING at raising bunnies. Tiana dug out of her cage and had a early morning rendezvous with Mr. Bun Bun who is NOT yet fixed. We have NO IDEA how much "cuddling" went on but we'll know for sure in 31 days if there are extra little bunnies hoping around. I'm SO not ready for babies and especially not a litter of them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that ALL they did was cuddle. Buie is currently making plans to build a more secure cage and I'm thinking I should get Mr. Bun Bun to the vet ASAP!'

We were completely clueless if A. they had even done anything or B. if Tiana had become pregnant or C. if she was, in fact, pregnant how many kits were about to be added to our zoo!!

We immediately googled "rabbit pregnancy" and guess what? A rabbit's gestational period is 28-31 days. So the good news is we would find out in a month if were going to have a baby...and the bad news? Well, the bad news is that we could possibly have a lot more babies added to our house in one month.

I added the date to my phone. I counted 28 days from the "incident" as I call it. That whole month I was on bump watch. I kept telling Buie that I thought she was getting fatter. Buie was in denial but I knew she was pregnant. Call it woman's intuition or whatever, but I was 80% sure she was pregnant and I was kind of excited. Because let's be honest, who wouldn't want to stare at this cute little face?

She was due to give birth the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend IF she was pregnant (remember we still didn't know if she was pregnant or not and had no clue how many babies were in there if she was). We were scheduled to shoot a wedding on Saturday in Texas. We kept watching. Friday was day 32 and the day we were leaving for Dallas. By the way, I feel it very necessary to mention that my husband threatened to NOT go with me to Texas if the babies were born before we left. He just couldn't see how we could leave them here alone while we were off shooting some wedding. Seriously!? I mean, that's sweet and all, honey, but what are you going to do breast feed the bunnies yourself??

No bunnies were born on Friday and honestly we kind of assumed she wasn't pregnant and forgot about it. We had a crazy busy weekend in Texas. Our pet sitter took great care of our bunnies while we were away with no mention of a baby..so we were in the clear, right? 

WRONG. 

We got home Monday night, fed and watered the bun buns and everything was lovely and seemed normal. Tuesday afternoon rolls around after Buie and I slept in late...embarrassingly late actually. I went to feed the rabbits and I opened up the side of their hutch and I see a huge wad of bunny hair like a little nest, in the picture below. Since Buie and I had been doing some mad research we knew that rabbit mommas will make a nest right before giving birth. My first thought was Oh crap, she about to give birth! And then the big mound of hair started to move and I freaked out!

Oh my gosh! She WAS in fact pregnant and sometime between Friday night and Tuesday morning, Tiana gave birth to our newest little baby bun bun. And here he or she is. Yes, that's right, we still don't know if it's a boy or girl yet.... so for now it's name is Baby Bun Bun.

 We have loved watching Baby Bun Bun grow these past 2 and a half weeks. I honestly can't believe how fast he's grown.

We had fun introducing him to our nieces and nephews, too. My niece, Makaylan, wanted to name him Aladdin. :) 

Baby Bun Bun has a vet appointment this Friday to get some things checked out and to find out the sex. I thought he was a boy at first glance but now I'm not so sure. ha. I told you were are beginners at this. We are a little concerned about his back legs. He doesn't seem to be using them very much so we are taking him in to get him checked out just to make sure everything is ok. The research we have done says he should be hopping around and using his legs more than he is so we just want to cautious. Say a little bunny prayer for Baby Bun Bun on Friday morning. :) 

We Got Bunnies!

That's right we got bunnies! Like real live floppy eared, carrot chomping, nose wiggling, poops a lot, real live rabbits. It all started last Easter when I hosted my first Easter mini sessions. I rented two rabbits from a guy nearby. They were adorable, well one of them was...the other one liked to bite. Anyway, the hubs and I tossed around the idea of keeping one but then (like normal people) decided not too. 

So this Easter rolled around and we rented the three sweetest bunnies from the same place as last year. The guy informed us that he was "getting out of the rabbit business" so that got us wondering what would happen to all of his rabbits. We had so much fun photographing these rabbits in this year's Easter mini sessions. They were great around the children and definitely no biting. We kind of grew attached to them all in about three days. 

We weighed our pros and cons and I actually said no, we don't need more responsibility, more cost, more work, etc. etc. But then Buie, just said, let's do it! :) And of course, I said okay. He didn't have to twist my arm too hard. 

So like that, we added three more to our zoo.