New Family Member -- Well Sort Of

Today after a busy day for all of us, we had a new family member added. Any guesses?

Well...that was a job!

Yesterday out with Jim, the wind started to pick up, I worried about the bunnies.

Called Bob (next door neighbour) and asked him if the 'tent' was still standing.

He said, yup, everything looks good. I relaxed a bit.
got home...checked the tent...well...it wasn't all right.

So got all the rabbits out. Jim a total sweetie for helping me with this as he was still tired physically from Saturday's rescue.

Put them on the grass, covered them with a tarp.
When in town on Monday I had asked Princess Auto if I could return the tent and get a new one. They said "yup!" so did that today.

Lauren came over at 5ish with Bella. Bella is a doe that I bred last summer so she's a bit more than a year old. She's had an 'oops' litter. She needed to rehomed out of fairness to her... Her family is getting a new housemate and quarters are getting tighter something had to give and so Bella came to live here. I don't mind. I've regretted not being able to keep one from that litter and Bella is just a knock out.

Anyways, Lauren said she'd help us put up the new tent. Wow...did her helpfulness ever come in handy. :) Took us an hour to get it all set. Another hour to get most everyone back in and squared away...until we had to break for supper.

After supper I put the rest of the bunnies away. That was a challenge.

Decided to get the guinea pigs out of their wet housing...I have NO idea how they managed to get wet but they succeeded. So they are now in their summer housing pen.

Lost two mice to the rain last night. I didn't realize the tarp I covered them with lacked in the waterproofing department so they almost drowned. Two (one baby and one adult) got too wet and died. The rest I managed to rescue! The babies I brought in the house and used the hair dryer on them for a bit. And I managed to catch one of my mouse escapees tonight. YEAH!!! :)

Boy are my muscles sore.

Thunderstorm . . . Damage

So the first thunderstorm of the year just came through, although there are still some small, less intense cells on the local radar. I had just went out to close up the ends of the rabbit tent (one of those metal frame covered in tarp garages) when it hit. When I say hit, I mean HIT. The wind went from almost nothing to an outright gale--maybe not technically, but it certainly seemed like it. The rabbit tent started to lift off. I grabbed it with a little success, that is, it didn't blow away completely.

What did happen is that the tent pushed over two racks of rabbit cages knocking over the nesting cages in the middle, knocking over the aquariums full of mice (breaking one), and threatening to knock over the other two racks like a bunch of dominoes. I grabbed it and screamed for my mother because it was lifting me up--all 230 pounds and a tent.

There I was soaked to the bone, holding on to the cross bar of the rabbit tent being lifted off the ground wondering if I was on my way to Oz. Eventually (probably only a few minutes, but it felt like a very long time) my mom got out there to help, but even with the two of us we kept blowing up off the ground.

The only way to talk was to yell at the top of our lungs, and once the wind started to abate a small amount, my mom wondered if Justin was ok. Our concern was that he might come outside to find out what was happening so she went in to check. A minute or so later the two of them came out to help (yes, I still needed it) and slipped in the mud (yes, both of them). Justin started to cry, and stood right by grandma as the only safe place. Then when he had calmed he went and hid in the shed.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the wind started to diminish, and one person could handle things. So I checked on what was broken, then went inside to check the radar to see where the storm cells were. They were past our place, and as I was about to go out again, Justin was as the back door wanting to come in.

I let him in, and helped him take off his wet clothes. He told me how he was happy to live in a house because houses don't blow away, not like tents.

Out I went again, and mom and I lifted up the racks. I thought of trying to capture the mice, but having been bitten by a mouse before I decided catching scared mice was not a wise thing to do.

You may wonder where Annette was through all of this. She was at a women's conference in Hamilton. Thankfully, she was on her way home, and while I was not able to exit the tent yet, she called to say she was on her way home.

Soon, the wind and rain reduced enough, and I was cold and tired enough of holding the tent, that I simply headed inside to get out of the wet clothes, have a warm shower, and get dressed in something dry. Annette arrived a little after that and we went to check out the damage.

Here are the pictures:
While the two racks behind Annette are up again in this picture, but notice the middle cages are still on the ground.


Here is a large tear in the tent material.


Here is one of the two posts up the one side which were damaged by this. This has resulted in only two post on that side providing lateral stability so when the wind blows from that side the whole tent sways, and that side bows in very far.


The broken aquarium.


Finally, I didn't notice this until I took the pictures, but one of the top bars was snapped as well.

Nice Good Friday Day

Good service this morning.

Gramma came over.

Justin and gramma played, then we did some yard work.
Jim removed the engine oil cooler lines on the van, and changed tires on the car.

then we chilled in the house for a spell.

Life has been good.
God richly blessed us today.

KW Home Education Conference

Saturday Jim and I attended the KW Home Education Conference. It was interesting.

I LOVED looking through the resource centre. Picked up four books, was tempted by countless others, Jim discovered a couple he'd like to get at some point.

Most of the seminars were good, can't say I liked them all. Made me think abit more what I want to do and how I want to do it. I like the idea of doing unit studies...but not all unit studies. I also like the idea of classic education.

Lunch was simple of buns and salad.