It's getting ridiculous here on the funny farm....

He's are becoming she's and she's are turning into he's. Or something like that.

Last afternoon around 5pm Ava went out to check on the teenage bunnies, who now reside in a dog cage in the garage, and she came back in with a disturbing tale she was telling. "Mama, I think one of the new baby bunnies got into the bucks cage cause there's something moving in there." This is the buck we bought at the auction to breed to the mother rabbit who has now had 2 litters in 4 weeks- how naive were we to think we needed a buck around to help with that? Ha! They just spontaneously have babies here on the funny farm.

Anywho, back to our crazy tale. "No, Ava, I don't think a baby is in the bucks cage." I reassure her. "Maybe a mouse got in there or something. I'll come look." I head outside to see this buck that's sitting in a plastic tub that used to house the baby chicks that met such an unfortunate end a few weeks ago due to our dumb dog. The tub is still full of old dirty chicken litter and now has rabbit urine and feces too. After the new babies arrived on the scene we decided we'd just send this buck back to the auction since we obviously were not in need of his services. We've thrown him a little rabbit food and usually remembered to give him some water in the past few days, but that's as much effort as we've got time for with 60 goat babies and 12 bunny babies and 12 baby chicks kicking around.

It doesn't take long after looking in the tub for us to realize we've been fooled once again by the auction. Yep, our "buck" just gave birth to at least 6 tiny, red, baby hippos that are wiggling in all that old chicken crud and rabbit crud and a huge pile of rabbit fur. Who knew that a mother rabbit pulls out all her hair to make a nest and it looks like a rabbit went through the lawn mower? So we now have at least 16 baby rabbits on our funny farm, and 12 of them are unwanted and unplanned and uninvited. We're selling the 4 teenagers now but we'll see if anyone wants them. And wouldn't you know it - the auction that we were planning on taking them to this weekend to get rid of them is canceled due to a death in the family. And John just left this afternoon on a 3 day business trip.

Ava sure is excited though. She never dreamed we'd have this many rabbits. If they survive long enough to get hair on them I'll post some pictures. On the bright side, we should have tons of cute bunnies to play with soon.

Family Pictures

We are so lucky. I got onto Craigslist at just the right time a few weeks ago, looking for a new camera lens I could afford, and came across a lady looking to give away a photo shoot so she could build her portfolio. We made the cut (we were one of the first to reply) and she came and took our pictures Sunday afternoon. If you wanna check them out head to Absolute Image Photography and we're all over it. Look under the galleries at the Related Ones and Little Ones. As soon as I get the image CD (which is also free - crazy) I'll be sure to post more but let me know what you think. I think we turned out pretty dang hot.

Surprise, Surprise - Baby Hippos

Each night Ava asks to say her prayers quietly to herself so we're not quite sure exactly what she prays for. But someone must be listening to her prayers since this is what we saw when we opened the bunny hutch this morning.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8

Baby Hippos

At least, that's what Ava thought they look like and I have to agree with her. I've never actually seen a newborn baby rabbit but they're not much to look at really. They are a random assortment of different shades so we really have no idea what they may turn into.

We were quite surprised, no actually, shocked since this is the rabbit that we bought last week at the auction who came with 4 "babies" already. The auctioneer kept saying these "babies" were only 3 weeks old and still nursing so they had to go with Mama.

I'm starting to think maybe these guys at the auction don't really have any idea what they're talking about. We've now brought home at least 3 "hens" that have morphed into roosters immediately after leaving the auction. And now we've got 4 "teenage" baby bunnies and 8, yep, 8, real baby bunnies. At least the teenagers are still really cute.

But now we need to quickly figure just how big of teenagers these ones are before we start having some very adolescence behavior out of these old "babies". Like it or not, we may have just become breeders of rabbits.

These are here......

........along with 50 of their friends. We're having friends, preschools and everyone else within a 20 mile radius over. All blogging buddies are invited too.

These also showed up from the small animal auction last week with their mama. There are 4 of them and they're all adorable. John built a real hutch for them. They've lasted a week so we've got high hopes for them.

And we're suckers for chicks. So these also hopped in the car at the auction a few weeks ago. So far, so good but we haven't let them out yet. There are 12 and they're a random assortment of funky breeds that should give us a nice eclectic collection of chickens when they're big.

Happy Easter

Too Much Fun....What's that Mean? And a Photography ??

We got back from our whirlwind trip to Florida on Thursday in the wee hours (picture to come soon - too many to count) and unpacked just in time to welcome fun Ithaca friends we haven't seen in years. Anna came up from Raleigh, NC with her two cute-as-can-be boys to experience farm life and we delivered it all - including small animal auctions, chicken parties and life (and death) on the farm. Stories to come soon.

In the meantime, check out these shots that randomly happened while we were in Florida. I made a new but feels old friend through my little sis and she happened to want to take our pictures and who am I to say no? I think they rock but even better, I got to pick this awesome girlies photo brain for 5 hours. I need a new, actually, I need 2 new lenses so I want some advice.

What lenses do you all that play with pictures use daily and what lenses can't you do without? I want a portrait lenses that will go down to f1.4 but I'm debating the cheaper on at f1.8. Advice? Opinions? Also, I need a zoom lenses but not sure if I need 200 or 300 and if I'm willing to fork out the mulla for the Image Stabilizer? Advice? Opinions?