The Three Musketeers

[JBun]

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with your boys. I wish they would just behave themselves with each other. I'm sure you do too. I have an idea, but no clue if it will work. Since Houdini is already separated from the other two, what about taking him with you next time you go to take care of the dog. I don't know, maybe being away and in a new place will shock him back into behaving himself.Maybe he'll be so glad to be back with his buddies, it will put an end to the fighting. Is it Houdini instigating all the fighting, or does Snowy do it too?

I hope your bite is healing ok. I know all about the biting. I have a few girls that will bite me if I don't handle them just right. It's such a pain. My boys are much more pleasant. No biting problems with them, but they aren't together like yours.

 

[whitelop]

I just got caught up. I can't believe he bit you! Oh wow.

I don't know how to fix their bond to make it better, you seem to have a pretty good handle on bonding. But I REALLY hope it gets better! I couldn't imagine the fighting and all of that. How stressful and worrisome it must be. Hopefully they'll get it sorted out soon enough.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Yeah, just looking at my wound this morning...it's a bit sore around it but it OK. I suppose they were just still all fired up after the scuffle and Houdini didn't realise it was my chin instead of Snowy's butt.

I might try what you've suggested Jenny as he's in a separate cage now and he only goes out with Bandy as I can't trust him and Snowy not to have a go. It's usually him that starts as he follows Snowy around and then when he gets too close, they both have a go. He's doing a lot of the crouching on all fours at the moment so I can usually spot what's coming. I think it's got to the stage now where they both have a go as if he approaches Snowy, it's a case of I'll get in there first, they sometimes just face off on their hind legs and jump at each other.

You're right Morgan, it is very stressful as I just want them back as they were and don't know exactly why this happened.

 

[Chrisdoc]

I tried to this yesterday but after writing a really long piece, photobucket decided to freeze and puffff, it disappeared so here goes again.

Dinner on New Year´s Eve was as good as ever with loads of seafood( langoustines, crab claws, small crabs, whelks and barnacles), spanish serrano ham and cheese, roast lamb with roast potatoes and roast garlic followed by strawberry trifle and butterfly buns and finally our 12 grapes washed down with a glass of spanish cava.

Here´s one of my Spanish friend´s family before we started:

I had to put a photo of these things...they are a delicacy in Spain and are barnacles. They are collected off rocks near the shore and you take the claw looking thing off and there´s meat inside. I must admit I had to try them but don´t think I´ll be having them again any time soon.....:nope:

This is the plate of them with the whelks:

Here´s the roast lamb, it was yummy and so tender.

Here are the butterfly buns I made...

And guess what, I forgot to take a photo of us all stuffing grapes in our mouths in 12 chimes, I was so busy trying to keep up with the tradition and I couldn´t eat the grapes and takes photos at the same time. OK so when you´re watching the TV and the clock strikes midnight, you have to eat one grape each chime and finish them all by the time twelfth one. The trick is now to choose quite small grapes so you can manage to do it. After you´ve finished them, it´s all washed down with a glass of bubbly.

So that was New Year´s Eve Spanish style. :great:

 

[Chrisdoc]

I finally have a bit of time this afternoon and thought I´d post some of the last photos I´ve taken particularly of Bandy. Poor soul, he´s in the middle of the falling out of my other two and he´s a bit bewildered but doesn´t have any favourites, he´s spending time with both of them and getting groomed to death which he loves.

I´ve been combing him today as he has so much fur and he´s really molting at the moment, I keep finding his fur in everything. I definitely think he´s got lionhead in there as he now has a fine mane, I´m falling in love with the tuft on the top of his head, it´s so cute.

Snowy and Houdini are still not back to normal but today they haven´t fought just stared at each other across the sofa, Houdini´s jumped across a couple of times with no teeth showing from either side so I suppose today must be a success. Snowy has been licking me to death, he´s sitting here right now cleaning my face, it does make me laugh and I just love him to bits.

I´ll be herding them in quite soon and heading down to do my dog duty so I´ll get my night fix of RO down there.

Photobucket has just packed up yet again, I hate it so much as it does this to me every day, what a pain so I´ll go out and post the photos when I come back on again so I don´t lose all this yet again...my memory is not what it was hahaha

 

[Chrisdoc]

Here we go again, crossing my fingers I can finish before it freaks out again...arrrggghhhh

Here he is licking my fingers after his banana fix

What´s up doc ???

I was trying to get him stretching but ended up with this. This is just a fur ball with ears and feet :hyper:

Well, it´s freaked out again so that´s all for now folks :tantrum:

 

[Ilovemyrabbit]

Wow! that dinner looked fantastic... The butterfly buns looked amazing. You must be a great cook!

Here do you want to enter your rabbits in the rabbit registry entries?: http://www.rabbitsonline.net/rabbits/

 

[whitelop]

Your butterfly buns look so good! Can I have your recipe? hahaha. You can PM it to me! If you want to, I'm not sure if you share recipes like I do, it could be a special one to you. haha.
The lamb looks delicious too. I LOVE lamb. My husband won't eat it, so I never cook it. I'll have to sneak some lamb in and make him eat it! I did it with deer and it was okay. haha
The barnacles, do your friends collect them themselves? Or can you buy them? I would assume since they're a delicacy you could probably buy them. What do they taste like? I love seafood and I would have been all over them. hahah. Get a few glasses of wine in me and I'll try anything! haha.

Bandy is such a pretty boy! I love the picture of him laying down. He really is a ball of fluff with ears and feet. I love his eye markings, they're so cute. I also really love Houdini's color. He's so pretty!

 

[Chrisdoc]

Elise, thanks for thinking my buns are nice, they actually do taste really good and never last long. I usually make them for all my friends and for my friend's daughter's parties and the like as they seem to be popular.

These dinners are awesome...so much to eat and my friend is a really good cook. I only eat lamb twice a year at her house, once on Christmas Eve which I missed this year and on New Year's Eve, it's a family tradition.

Just had a look at the register, it's great, will sit down tomorrow and have a read through it and register mine. Can't do it from here as I'm using my friend's computer so no photos.

Morgan, yes will definitely PM the recipe to you tomorrow. I have also baked two carrot cakes this week. One for my friend Doreen who uses had a piece in the cafe of the English supermarket we go to in the local town and it got me thinking as I'd never done one before. So I had a go and it turned out real good and I gave it to her to try and she loved it. So I did another to take to my friend's house on Saturday for her little party and everyone had a piece and it was a real success so I love this recipe and will send to you as well. I'll send a photo of it tomorrow as I took a couple as it looked so nice.

I love baking cakes particularly or doing desserts. I did a strawberry trifle for the New Year's Eve dinner and I've got chocolate mousse in my fridge at the moment which I'll distribute tomorrow. If I do any other of my favourite recipes, I'll let you know as I love sharing ideas and cooking. How are you doing with your French cuisine..have you tried any of the recipes yet ??

And yes Bandy is my furball, I'm always covered in hair nowadays and Houdini is my little scoundrel, he's got such an expressive face that I'll usually forgive him anything. He's been up to mischief again today as I had put a board behind the sofa so he couldn't make the hole any bigger but he'd found a way behind it this afternoon, I tell you that rabbit is so smart it's frightening :headsmack you never know what he's gonna get up to next. Yes, I think Ellie is going to be very like him, she's also very inquisitive and, I think, super smart so you watch her.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Sorry Morgan forgot about the barnacles. She bought them at the fish counter of the local supermarket, these ones are imported cos the ones that they collect from the north of Spain by hand are mega expensive although they're much better. They taste sort of like the sea, very salty but I'm sure the more expensive ones have a much better taste. And yes, they are so much better washed down with a glass of chilled white wine...yummy. I can see we have quite similar tastes in a lot of things

 

[Chrisdoc]

Well, just thought I´dupdate as I am home tonight with the boys but it´s been a bit of a traumaticnight.

First of all, I got homeand the TV wouldn´t work. I thought at first it was the aerial as I thoughtthey´d had a chew at that a while ago so I went and got the one from thebedroom, reconnected it, tried to retune and lost nearly everything. Then, Ibrought the box in from the bedroom cos that was working OK and connected thatthen realised that it was ht scarts they´d chewed so went and got the one fromthe TV in the bedroom as I couldn´t remember where I´d put he spare scarts.Well, that´s not strictly true as I t hink they´re in the chest in the spareroom but that would have meant moving boxes and loads of other stuff and Icouldn´t be arsed so I got the one off the other TV. So, I connected that andit still wouldn´t work. Yes, I thought maybe it´s the connection to theoriginal aerial point which is behind the sofa. I went to have a look and guesswhat.....the little buggers had pulled it out. UUUUUhhhhhh, I think I left mybrain behind at my friend´s house. I spent nearly an hour trying to sort this outso I was pretty mad with myself.

Anyway, I put Snowy on thesofa again but he´s now figured out how to jump down so I left them on theirown for a while but they´re still having a go and Houdini´s now poopingeverywhere which is doing my head in so I ended up putting Snowy in theenclosure on his own as it was doing Bandy´s head in as well being in themiddle.

Houdini has then spent afair amount of time sitting looking through the bars at Snowy and sniffing him.So not much progress but no terrible fighting just a bit of facing off and thenchasing each other.

However, I was trying toweigh them all today in my friend´s scale and I managed to do Snowy no bother.Took me a while to get Bandy in there, he such a little wriggler but Houdiniwas another matter. I put him in there and he was out, knocked nearlyeverything off the table including the bowl with their dandelions in which I´dcollected today and have now had to throw as they were full of glass....Ishould have known that he can´t sit still for two minutes. I did manage to doit though, Snowy is the smallest at 2lb 2oz, Houdini weighs in at 2lb 9oz andSnowy is the biggest at 3lb 10oz.

I´ve also noticed Bandy´stuft is now well noticeable. I definitely think he has lionhead although I waslaughing with my friend earlier on the phone as I think he looks likeLambchop...do you remember the little puppet with Shari Lewis. But, he´s such alittle cutie and I just love his little face now. I took a couple of photos asI couldn´t resist such cuteness.

My treks now are nearlyover, have only one more night after this to do and I´ll be back home on Sundayand hopefully, we´ll all get back to some normality and learn to live togetheragain. I won´t be doing this again any time soon if at all, don´t think I couldstand the stress.

Here is Bandy lounging about tonight...

He´s a really furry face now.

Here´s my little Snowy, a bit of a dark photo but he´s just a little softy...

No Houdini today, he´s in the doghouse.
Anybody use anything other than photobucket to download photos...it´s doing my head in as it keeps freezing and I lose everything, luckily today, I´d copied all the text before I downloaded the photos so didn´t have to start again when it threw me out. :crash

 

[Imbrium]

I haven't used it in ages, but you could try TinyPic

I'm so glad your house-sitting adventures are over... I really hope you're able to re-bond your boys before they destroy what's left of your sanity!

 

[Chrisdoc]

Thanks Jennifer, yes, it has been a very trying few weeks and I will be so glad to get back to normaility mainly for them as they have definitely missed their routine at night when they´re normally out until really late as I usually am up until at least 12.30/1am and that´s when they´re most active. Sunday will be great to be able to spend all day with them and all night although I´ll be doing cage cleaning duty first to get everything back nice and clean as I have´nt really had the time to do much change over this week although I did change some of Houdini´s bedding today as his little habit are all haywire as well.

Roll on Sunday and normality.

Jennifer, do you reckon Bandy has lionhead, I´m really loving all those tufts onder:

 

[Imbrium]

dunno, I'm really not very good with breeds... lionhead wouldn't explain the full-body wooly coat, as they just have the mane and sometimes a skirt. lionheads are a mix between dwarf breeds and wooly breeds or something like that, though, so lionheads and whatever Bandy is could share some common ancestry.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Yes, I see what you mean, I think he must have some lionhead as he´s got a lovely mane now but I´m sure he must have some angora as he´s got a real thick silky coat the his eyes patches look like a bit of hotot so he´s a strange mix. He is definitely not quite a dwarf as he´s a good pound or more bigger than the other two.

I´m just watching him flaked on the floor with Snowy grooming him and thinking of Phoenix and Hippogryff as Bandy just will not groom back but mine don´t seem to mind. He definitely is very spoiled in that aspect.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

I love Bandy's fluffy butt! And from the front, he reminds me of Scrooge because of his cheek tufts

 

[JBun]

Lol, Bandy looks like one of those guys from the 1800's with the bushy sideburns. It's hard to say whether he would be an angora or lionhead mix. Coloring wise he looks so much like my Baby. She's got the funny dark fur on the back of her ears too. It always makes me think of her having moldy ears, haha. It's just splotches of dark fur and always looks out of place to me.

I'm glad your ordeal is nearly over. I'm sure it will be easier to get things back to normal with your buns when they are back into a regular routine. I know my rabbits are never happy with me when I mess with their regular schedule.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Jenny, you´re right with bushy side burns, he looks so funny but I just love his little face.

And Missy, he does have loads of fur on that tail and I just love his furry thumpers as well.

He is a bit of a handful to groom but I´m managing to keep it mostly under control but boy, does he lose hair.

Last day today and back to normal tomorrow. You´re right Jenny, I´ve tried to keep them to as normal a schedule as possible but they have really missed their free time at night to get rid of all that energy. D Day tomorrow yippee :great:

 

[whitelop]

Bandy does look like Lambchop! Boy, did i love that sock puppet! He's such a beauty! Ellie is dancing circles around me right now, she must think he's handsome too!

 

[Chrisdoc]

Morgan, thanks I loved that show too and looking at him just reminded me of that lovable little puppet. Glad that Ellie thinks he's cute and he's such a gentle little boy and so cuddly. I only thought he looked like Lambchop when he looks straight at me and I haven't managed to get a photo of him like that yet but I will.