It’s been a long time since there’s been any “Bunny” in the KittyBunnyChicken. Here’s the 411 on our new family members.

So I have a dear friend, Mary who has been in my life since I first homed a foster bunny to her many years ago. Mary runs a bunny rescue, but she’s also “rescued” a foster chicken for me and another bunny as well.

Our first bunny exchange. Summer 2014

A visit to Mary’s home in 2015.

Mary’s husband died two years ago and recently she has had to make the decision to move into a smaller home and leave her beloved acre in the woods.

Bird feeders, wind chimes & houses for her feathered friends.

So Mary began to find homes for her chickens, bunnies and a beloved hound dog while she put her woodland home up for sale and started searching for a beachy new home close to the ocean. So, when she asked if I might help her out with this, how could I say no?  I said I would take two.

Meet Bella!

…and Bandit

They are a brother and sister bonded pair and they HAD to be homed together. These are old guys (around 8 years old) and reasonably tame. They’ve lived their whole lives outside in a bunny paradise of modified coops, tunnels, warrens and dens. My yard will not accommodate such bunny engineering, but we have provided luxury digs for these two. (more on this later)

Our meeting place is Elba, AL. It’s halfway between Pike Road and DeFuniak Springs where Mary lives. We had a takeout lunch from THE RABBIT HOLE (I kid you not) and we enjoyed some sandwiches while social distancing on an outdoor table.

Highly recommend the Juicy Lucy and the Reuben!

Another reason to admire my friend Mary (other than her HUGE heart) is that she was an Army nurse for many years. She’s still in the health care profession and, my hat goes waaaay off to her and everyone working in this field right now. THANK YOU !!!

The people I meet in the animal rescue world represent some of the very best in humanity, and have found a permanent home in my heart.  (Hi, Debbie!)

As soon as we arrived home with our new buns, Tony was kind enough to introduce himself and welcome them to the BURLINGAME KITTY BUNNY CHICKEN RESCUE RANCH AND SPA!

These guys look DELICIOUS!

Tune in later in the week for more on Bella & Bandit. We are already having too much fun! 🙂

Well, this is the last post about the Green House. The only thing that we had to wait for was painting the fence since the boards have to “cure” for a while before they can be painted. So here are some  photos of my lovely fence!

The pickets are white and the privacy part is stained the color of the porches.

This is the side yard next to our neighbors Martha & Irl. I hope they like how it looks. Plus we can see our yellow house from here. It’s for rent if anyone is interested!

This is the back yard and the future memorial garden where we hope to have a babbling fountain and small pond with flowers and shrubs. It’s still in the planning stages and we’re happy to get ideas from anyone who has done this in their yards. PLEASE!

This is my favorite part. It was Jim’s idea to paint the back gate red. Since our front door, back French doors and the storage shed doors are all red, we decided to stick to the theme. I love it. My house looks like Christmas all the time with all the red and green! 🙂

The guy who painted my fence did a beautiful and professional job. His name is Jamie and we’ve been lucky enough to avail ourselves of his many talents for a few years now. He’s good at most things that involve painting, yard work and muscles and I’m happy to share his contact info with any of my neighbors.

And here is a picture I meant to post at Christmas. Thanks for everyone who followed along on our Green House adventure. It was a labor of love and worth all the trouble.

I have some very happy news about Bobbi! I have found her a home with a friend in Starkville, MS.  We’ll take her there next week. I went to college in Starkville so it’ll be fun to look around my old stomping grounds too. I know she’ll miss her best friend, Mr. Mulder. Here is a sweet video of him giving her a bath.

The light show is back.

If you missed a previous post about the chandelier light show, let me recap. About ten weeks ago we were astonished to find that our living room had turned into a shower of tiny prisms of refracted light bouncing off the crystals on our chandelier. It happened again the next day, but it was not as spectacular, and then…nada. We thought that it was probably just some kind of cosmic magic that happened once and then went away. But Noooooo! Yesterday at around 4:30 we both  happened to be in the kitchen and were shocked to see that it had returned! Yay!

Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive

I was thrilled, but the look on Jim’s face was very familiar. He wanted to figure this out. So after a bit of geeking out on the computer, he came to the conclusion that this exhibit had something to do with the Winter Solstice and that we would probably see it once more in about five weeks and then it would disappear until next winter. By his calculations, it should show up again on March 30thth. He tried to explain about the trajectory of the sun’s ray thru the stair landing window and how the effect was not unlike the Stonehenge phenomenon, blah blah blah. I nodded my head and made “agreement” noises. (This happens a lot in our house). Living with Jim can sometimes be exhausting. Good thing he’s cute.

So, come on over to the disco party at the end of March. We’ll be out of town that day and I want photos!

Next subject…Bobbi, the foster kitten.

She’s embarrassed about her shaved tummy.

I’m not embarrassed of MY tummy!

Yes, Rowdy. We know you have a cute tummy.

Bobbi recently had her “surgery” and she’s recovering nicely. We’ve had a little success taming her this week. If we walk up to her verrrrry slowwwwwly we are able to pet her without her jumping up and running under the bed. She’s especially “pet-able” When she’s next to her best friend.

I love dis guy.

She’s still way too shy to be adopted, so we’ll continue to work with her until I can find her forever home. Helloooooo! Any takers???

Here are some more photos of the completed house. This is the sitting room. It’s just off the master bedroom. We watch TV at night and make coffee in the morning here. Plus the futon turns into a double bed for extra house guests.

Actually quite comfy.

Jim bagged this moose on a hunting trip in Canada. Bwwwaaaaaaa!

Coffee anyone?

So that’s all the exciting stuff going on at Chez Burlingame. I leave you with one last plug.

Hi. My name is Bobbi. I have a janky tail, a shaved tummy, and very pretty eyes. I’m soft and I smell like cookies. I am potty trained too and I will let you pet me if you’re very calm and gentle. I’ve had all my shots and surgeries. Please help me find a forever home? Please?

Good job Bobbi.

Put on your sunglasses. Our bedroom is BRIGHT! One of my dearest friends called this room “gaudy”. I know you meant it with love, right Susna? The burgundy velvet headboard would look right at home in Miss Kitty’s bedroom at the Longbranch Saloon.

I feel certain that she would approve of these prissy valences with the dangly doodles as well.

Set a spell Marshall Dillon!

I know I’m still stuck in the 90s with these burgundy/gold/green colors, but hey what’s so bad about the 90s?

Room to stretch out.

Jim “teleports” every Friday from this nook. Believe me, you are getting your tax dollar’s worth out of this guy.

So that’s our crazy bedroom. It may be a little “loud” for some, but I find it fun and peaceful.

A couple of other critters like it too.

Bobbi spends most of her waking hours (and sleeping ones) under the bed. She’s sharing a rare brave moment with her best friend Mulder here. She really loves him and seeks him out whenever she can. The only time we ever hear her meow is when she’s talking to him. She’s getting big and we’re still unable to tame her. Some miracle has to happen soon because the longer she stays wild, the less likely that she’ll ever warm to humans.

We do have evidence that she ventures into other rooms when no one is looking.

Here’s a final picture of one of the finishing touches to the Burlingame casa.

Thaaaaaat’s what I’m talking about!

Bobbi is the most challenging foster kitten we’ve had since we started ten years ago. I guess her first eight weeks were so stressful and scary that she’s taking a very long time to recover. When Jim can catch her, she enjoys being in his lap and getting petted and scratched. She has a very loud motor and she purrs like crazy with him. But as soon as he lets go, she zips off the bed and hides.

See her little paw touching Mulder’s face?

We have an ottoman at the foot of our bed and sometimes she’ll watch us for a long time before she gets the courage to jump up.

Don’t see me!

Jim is making a kitty door in our bedroom wall so the cats can go in there to use their box and get some food. Bobby loves going in and out of it getting foam insulation all over her head.

I love this playhouse!

She recently had her first visit to the vet and she got some fun worm medicine and shots. She was a very good girl, mostly because she was terrified. I was happy to learn that her tail was not injured. Bobbi was born with her weird little tail that looks like a thumb hitch hiking.  Mulder makes fun of it, but she doesn’t seem to notice that she’s different in anyway.

When can I go home?

We will continue to socialize this baby and make a proper pet out of her as best we can. Finding a forever home will be challenging since she’s shyer than most Burlingame kittens. Someone will have to love her for her beauty and sweetness since her personality is a little slow to shine. I know someone out there is the right parent for Bobbi.

I’ll close with some photos of our completed fence. We are so pleased with it. Joel Jackson built it and it was the first project he’d ever done like ours. He and Jim figured out a system to put the privacy fence on top of the stone wall with some funky brackets and cement mortar. We have to wait a couple of months to paint it, but for now it still looks great and gives us a very nice little private yard.

Front right. The pickets will be painted white and the privacy part will be stained the porch color.

View from the street corner. I love how the stone wall looks with the fence.

Nice sized enclosed yard despite our small lot. Tony is the only cat who can scale this fence to escape. Our other cats are too fat and lazy.

Left side. Shortly after the fence was completed our neighbor added some fencing on his side to create a little enclosure for his dog.

Not much room on this side of the house for anything but AC units and our composters, but it’s nice that the fence hides this stuff.

The gate is in front of my car and when I’m carrying groceries I just push on the gate and it opens easily with one finger.

This gate will be red like all the other doors on the house. The rest will be stained the color of the porches.

And once in the gate, it’s just one step up to the porch and back door. We wanted the house as low to the ground as permitted just for this reason. Easy access will come in handy as we age and get crotchety.

My favorite part of all is how cozy and private the back porch is now.

So that’s it for this week. I’m almost finished with doing “house” posts. I think I just have a couple of things left to share with you on this topic. Meanwhile we’ll keep bombarding Bobbi with mandatory love and hope for the best. Thanks for reading.

I have a new foster kitten. Her name is Bobbi. Here is her story…

I scared.

About 10 days ago I swear I saw a tiny black bunny running in the back yard. I watched the little thing try frantically to scramble under the fence and then jump on top of it to disappear. The reason I thought it was a bunny was the tail. Just a little nub. But I soon understood it was a kitten with a bobbed tail. I was very upset that I couldn’t catch her but there was nothing I could do but be sad. The next day I saw her again. This time she ran under my neighbor’s house. I called Traci and asked if I could go under her house to set a humane trap and of course she said yes.  That night Jim set the trap with some stinky cat food and put a warm blanket inside and a heavy rug on top of the trap. We went out to dinner, and when we came home we had a kitten.

I still scared.

We set up the kitten nursery in our sitting room off our master bedroom. There’s a futon in there and she mostly stays under it. Jim has to shimmy underneath (I am not really made for “shimmying”). She was absolutely terrified of us but Jim was able to catch her and hold her tight for some “mandatory love”. It’s the only way we know how to tame wild kittens and it usually works within a few days. Jim examined her and saw she was a girl. He also looked closely at her poor little tail. It’s been broken and it has somehow healed up crooked. I shudder to think how this could have happened and how much she must have suffered while when it was injured. It’s only about two inches long and has a little bend in the middle. Imagine a thumb hitch-hiking.

Maybe not so scared now.

We watch TV in the evenings upstairs and Jim aggressively pets and scratches her for the whole time. She seems to enjoy it and even purrs a little, but as soon as he lets go-BAM she’s off and back under the futon. She comes out to eat and use her litter box (only one accident the very first night). She has no idea how to play. She probably has been using every ounce of her energy to survive for the first eight weeks of her life. We sent in the professional kitten whisperer yesterday for the first time to begin his rigorous kitten-training method.

Listen kid. Here’s how we do things around here.

I thought she’d be terrified the first time she saw another cat, but no. She mewed and ran right up to him and nuzzled her head into his side. Sweet Mulder. He is a cat among cats. I saw a tiny sign of progress this morning when I looked into the sitting room and saw her sitting ON TOP of the futon. Baby steps Miss Bobbi. We’ll make a proper kitten out of you soon.

Brave Bobbi!

My heart breaks for this little girl and you can believe I’m going to use shameless begging to find her a forever home. I can never take her to the shelter because her chances of getting adopted are slim. Open your hearts people. Find room in your family for this little orphan! Please.

I’ll close with a couple of photos of my casa. Here’s the completed front porch…

Looking west toward the lake

Looking east up the street.

And in keeping with the kitty theme today, here’s a picture of my foyer closet.

Actually we don’t have a foyer closet, but these guys do a great job!

More on Bobbi and more house stuff later this week. Thanks for reading!

Do you obsess about the little things? Have you ever pondered the little deely boppers on the end of your ceiling fan chain? Of course you haven’t. But guess what? Jim has. He thought we needed to have some bling instead of the boring kind that comes with the fan. I found some sparkly colorful ones on Etsy and ordered all different colors. Jim put them up according to his particular sense of style and I have to admit, they’re pretty cool.

Blue Room

Living Room

My husband is such a GIRL!  Yes, he’s a bit of a weirdo, but he’s MY weirdo!

He’s also a math genius (OK, genius is a strong word, but he is really smart), so his skills came in handy when hanging the pet pictures on the first stair landing. Here’s the story…When Hannah was eleven she drew a stunning picture of our kitty Boots. This was back in the year 2000. We loved it so much. It truly captured our sweet little cat and we were happy to frame it and hang it on the wall.

This job was not easy since all of the pics are slightly different sizes, plus the hanging methods were different and placed in random areas on the back of each pic. He got out his tape measure and turned up the “Geek dial” to full blast and began calculations.

Adult beverages were required for this task.

Three hours from start to finish.

Three years later she drew our kitty Missy. She continued until 2014 when she drew Dave our little brown bunny. If you zoom in you can see the whole gang starting with Boots at 11:00.

Zoom in to see all the fur babies. Four of them are still with us and eating us out of house and home. The rest are resting peacefully in our pet cemetery.

Boots 2000, Missy 2003, Roger the Wonder hamster 2006 (she gave him “elbows”, hamsters don’t have elbows. 🙂 Buster 2008, Boo Boo 2009, Rowdy & Sam 2012 (still with us and fat as pigs!), Rosie, Daisy & Violet 2012 (my very sweet chickens who were evicted from waters because of a complaining neighbor grrrrrr, Mulder 2013 (still with us, and the strangest cat on Planet Earth), Dave the Bunny 2014 (for a short time we had two bunnies-Dave & Buster)

I love looking at them every time I climb the stairs.

In 2017, I decided that we needed one more pet portrait so I drew Hannah and Tony. Tony came to live with us after she died in December 2015. This little cartoon was modeled after a wonderful picture we took of her on her last Christmas with us.

Hannah & Tony Christmas Day 2014

I tried my best Hannah B.

Stop by any time to see my “priceless” art. Our kid was talented and wonderful. We love all the treasures she left behind.