A riddle

Once again, the adventures of veterinary school have taken me away from the plains of central Illinois. Let's see if you can guess where I have been. Here are some hints:

It looks like this at the end of March

But when the clouds finally clear, there are some gorgeous sites

 The desert sagebrush...

and the mountains... not something you see in Illinois.

And everywhere you look, there are sheep! Even places you don't look. (And everything you see, including clumps of wool, piles of snow, and rocks start to look like sheep.)

(Warming up chilled lambs in a lamb jacuzzi)

Stinkers. Moms put up with so much.

(Getting weighed)

Here's another hint: It's a federal facility, so you can't ride in the back of the truck.

Me, Nicole from UC Davis and Melissa from University of Wisconsin.

There's also a real live veterinarian, Dr. Liz Adams.

She's a super rockstar.

Since there are so many sheep, you might come across something strange every now and then.

(two headed. He (they?) didn't make it)

Final hint: while I was here I was able to make my sister's birthday cake.  Thank you, David Lebovitz, for an awesome recipe.

And of course I visited this whipper snapper.

 Look at her awesome hair!

The end. If you still don't know where I was for the sheep part, I will give you a final hint. Ok, that wasn't really a hint. 

Don't let your rabbits grow up to be cowboys.

These little whipper snappers are growing like mad! And they are just too cute for their own good. 

(Note: Gooberschnoozle crater alert!)

Drinking from mom's water...

Today was the first day ever we got an egg from every single hen. I was so proud.

The end.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Lucy and Lola: Gangsters of Love.

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An Update for Katie

The babies are growing.  As far as I can tell we haven't lost one yet.  They should open their eyes any day now.  Juno's doing a good job of filling her role as milk provider and I'm proud of her.

Lessons from Atlanta and what rabbits can teach us

Things I have learned while in Atlanta:

1)  It takes me approximately 5 weeks to drink 150g of Inka.

2) Goat cheese goes well with every vegetable.


3) Spinach + quinoa bread: promising, but don't double the amount of spinach the recipe calls for. Maybe it needed goat cheese. 

4)  I am an insomniac. It goes away when I am comforted by being able to steal the covers off of someone else. Or maybe it is just that Alex is such a drain on my energy that I have no trouble falling asleep at home because I am so exhausted at the end of the day.

5)  Alex does a good job doing the farm chores. And the world doesn’t fall apart and everything still functions when I am away. At least I’m assuming it does. I still haven’t seen what the house looks like yet.


6) Eating chocolate is a good way to pass time.


7) Oh yeah, I can't live without Alex.

 Also included in this edition: Reasons for being a rabbit, especially relating to motherhood

1)      You are only pregnant for 30 days.

2)      Labor: no big deal.

3)      1 week olds do just fine outside in subzero temperatures.

4)      They only have to be nursed ONCE A DAY! (And you can do the whole crew at once, so no big deal.)

5)      Benign neglect, people: ignore them and they will grow up juuuuuuust fine.

These are all philosophies I could see myself embracing.

Cute Enough to Eat!

I got a little surprise this morning.  I had just gotten back from my run, and stopped to feed the rabbits and chickens before going inside to feed the dogs (this is what my life is like with Katie gone).  We attempted to breed our rabbits on the first of last month, but we were fairly certain that things didn't take with Illiana, and due to the premature fur-pulling nest-making activities of Juno a couple weeks ago (see the section under pseudopregnancy from the previous post) I also assumed that she was not pregnant.  I briefly checked her nest box late last week, but it seemed fairly uninteresting, and consequently forgot all about it, with the exception of the occasional thought that I should empty the straw out of it.  So this morning, I figured I'd take a look in Juno's nest box to see if there was anything in there, and lo and behold, underneath a bunch of Juno's pulled-out fur there was something moving!  This is what I saw:

Look at those cute little ears

From my best attempts to count the constantly-moving little critters, we have five baby rabbits, all of which are completely black from head to toe and about four inches long.  It's likely that they are either 4 or 5 days old at this point (she should have kindled on the 30th or 31st).  Juno appears to be taking good care of them and to have already lost some of her extra weight due to milk production.  Katie and I are both very excited.  We've had our rabbits since May/June and FINALLY have our first litter.  Hopefully this is just the beginning of many more lagomorphs to come.

Here's Juno, the proud mother:

She looks a little sleepy...

On a final note, I'd like to point out that our rabbits are outside with absolutely no heat source.  Wednesday and Thursday night we had below 0 temperatures and all of the kits seem to be just fine.  I think that's amazing.

Marriages and video chat

After my last post, you may all wonder if I am insane. Presumably, yes.

I am over halfway done with my time here in Atlanta and Google video chat has saved my marriage. Too bad it wasn't around when we were doing that whole long distance engagement thing...

We chat about every day and our conversation revolves around a few questions I almost always ask Alex:

1) How is Lucy's leg?

2) How is Lola's cancer?

3) How is your MRSA?

4) Is Ruben throwing up lately?

5) Are there any baby bunnies?

Here are some the typical responses:

1) Not good.

(Ow! She kept jumping over the fence to go eat chicken poop so Alex made the fence high enough that she couldn't jump over it. She still tried to, though...)

2) Not any bigger than yesterday.

3) Gone. For now.

4) Let's see. Yes.

5) Induced ovulators are the bane of my existence.

Read below if interested in the problem that sometimes happens with induced ovulators. FYI cats and camelids are also induced ovulators. Wouldn't that be strange if humans were?

(My apologies if that is too much information for anyone out there. Vet students, including myself,  are pretty much desensitized to anything having to do with animal reproduction.)

That's about the extent of it. Our conversations are mind-bogglingly stimulating, which is what has to happen if you are going to have an interesting and exciting relationship.

Trust me. I'm almost a professional.

PS Thanks for all your concern about my gooberschnoozle. I finally won the war and the gooberschnoozle retreated, leaving in its wake a crater the size of Juneau.