[Ag-eq] The BlanchRanch Bulletin for May 2014

[Jewel via Ag-eq]

Well!  Yesterday May 27 2014 was a day to remember and to forget,
Just to set the scene, I will go back to May 17.
On that morning, Peter aka Houdini Pete, the rabbit escaped once again, and despite my posting an ad 
in the "lost and found" column of the Southland Times, putting up a notice at the vet, and the 2 
local supermarkets, there had been no response.
1 friend, who has demonstrated some slight psychic power in the past said that she was sure that he 
was safe, and had a mental picture of him with a child, while another friend who is not gifted with 
powers of foresight, said that he, Peter, would, probably, come back when winter flexed its muscles, 
which it did shortly after  when a wintry blast came up from Antarctica, and as only a few small 
pieces of land stand between Southland and that large lump of ice, when it gets a bit lively down 
there, Southland is the first centre of human population north of McMurdo Sound and Scot Base to 
feel the effects.
I had no more faith in this probability than I had had in friend #1's mental picture.
Time passed, and friend #2 was here yesterday fixing the shed so that I would have somewhere to 
store this winter's stock feed, and then, he happened to look in the little enclosure at the back of 
the sheds, and there was  .    PETER!!!
Where he had been for 10 days, one can only speculate [more of that in a moment!] but he was safe 
and, extremely well, not having lost a single ounce.
I rang the vet and the supermarkets saying that the notice re a missing rabbit could be torn down as 
he that was lost had found his way home.
My call to one of the supermarkets was interesting and rather amusing as the woman to whom I spoke 
started by asking if it was a big fat golden and white rabbit with a bell collar around its neck, 
and when I said that it was, she said that he had been in her garden and had eaten all the carrot 
tops and when they were gone, had started in on the silver beet.
She was unaware of her uninvited dinner guest with a taste for vegetables until someone asked her if 
she knew that she had a rabbit in her garden. To which, of course, she answered "NO!"
She got a cat cage, and then set about trying to catch the varmint, but said varmint was having none 
of it and left, in a hurry, never to return.
Now that was a week or more ago, so where he has been in the meantime certainly has done him no 
harm.
When one thinks the word "rabbit", it is not, normally, associated with the other word 
"superintelligence"  but Peter seems to be the exception that proves the rule, for the following 
reasons:.
His last 2 escapes have had identical causes:  i.e.:  the bolt snap that connects his collar the 
tethering chain has come off the collar, and I think that he has worked out a method of bringing 
this about.
He turns his head on the side and seizes the clip in his teeth and then, don't ask me how, he pulls 
the little knob back, thus opening the clip so that he can pull it off the ring.
The second instance that seems to prove his intelligence is that he takes very good care to steer 
well clear of dogs, and as dogs there are a-plenty around here.
In his wanderings, this must have taken a good deal of savvy to achieve.
The garden where he always used to go did not have a dog, but a large one lives there now, so he did 
not return to that garden as you would think he would have done as it was, you could say, his "home 
away from home!"
I thought that Bugzee seemed happier with Peter being absent, but when I went to put them out this 
morning, Bugzee was cuddled up to peter!
I have replaced that suspect blot snap with a quick link, which, I hope, will prove a bit beyond 
Peter's ingenuity.
Now from rabbits to goats.
For a long time, I have wanted to get back to having goat's milk rather than that adulterated cow's 
milk that we buy from the supermarket, but when I have seen dairy goats on TradeMe, if it is a doe, 
it is either too expensive for my skinny pocket, is too far away or has been sold.
However, on Sunday, I came across an ad where none of these applied.
The young doe that had been labelled as being "on hold" was available as the original potential 
buyer had not taken up the option, it was, reasonably, priced and the owner said that she would 
deliver it.
It is a 3 quarterbred Nubian with the remaining quarter being Alpine, and, although not mated yet, 
will be to a purebred Nubian buck.
As some of you may know, giving my animals imaginative and appropriate names is one of my pet 
hobbies and as this doe does not have a name; my imagination was free to have its way.
I associated the Nubian Desert with the African country The Republic of Mali, so that was the name 
she will have, but Found, upon looking it up on Wikipedia, that the Republic of Mali and the Nubian 
Desert have nothing in common apart from both being in Africa.  The Nubian Desert is, actually, the 
western portion of the Sahara, and it forms part of Egypt and The Sudan, so Mali is not as apropos 
as I thought but is a nice name so Mali she will be.
Now if you return your ears/eyes to the beginning of the BRB, you will hear/see that I said that May 
27 was a day to * remember and to * forget, so here comes the part that I would prefer to * forget!
Friend #2 who alerted me to the fact of Peter's return also told me later that Minstrel was dead in 
the barn.
I cannot think what could have caused his very sudden death.
I had fed and checked the 2 of them, Heidi and Minstrel the day before and Minstrel was fine, 
behaving, absolutely, as usual giving no clue to there being anything wron.
He was lying, fully stretched out, on his right side by the feed trough just where he had been when 
I fed them.
His stomach was a little puffed up but that would have been caused by the build up of trapped 
gasses.
So, there you have it!  The ups and downs of life on the BlanchRanch!

         Jewel