Status:

Lavander^* needed a groom today, as you can see in the above photo. Rabbits tend to shed in phases up their bodies, starting at the tail and moving towards the neck, so we’re at tufty butt stage with Lav. I have a theory that in nature grooming gets dealt with by running through hedgerows and spiky undergrowth which are absent in our garden, so we have to do it manually. Otherwise she and Wally might ingest too much hair when grooming each other which can be dangerous (and makes their poops string together in a line like Christmas lights, but that’s beside the point.) Normally we do this together but Fi was otherwise engaged so I figured I’d do it myself. Lav was not happy and did her best to escape but I held on and didn’t get bitten. One rabbit successfully de-fluffed. Yay!

Lav is a bit of a nightmare, but that’s just her nature. When we adopted her and Wally from Fat Fluffs (and if you’re contemplating a rabbit then please adopt, don’t shop) we’d had Wally on hold while he recovered from his neutering op and knew he was a friendly snugglebun, but we needed a lady to bond with him. Lav was the runt of a litter born at the rescue and all her siblings had already been adopted. She was angry and aggressive, growling at anyone who came near, rabbit or human. We took pity on her and said “go on, throw her in”. Ever since Fi has taken her on as a project, slowly wearing her down with strokes and pats, and she’s much better than she was. That’s not saying much though and she still growls and cannot abide her whiskers being touched.

Our approach to rabbits is to let them be how they want to be. We invite them to hang with us and maybe bribe them a bit with small pieces of banana, but if they want to be alone then that’s fine. I personally don’t think they make good pets, though all rabbits are different and I know some can make good companion animals (particularly the giant breeds), but they’re also not wild animals and need human care. So we like to approach them in a husbandry way, giving them what they need, intervening where necessary and enjoying their presence and company when they choose to share it. Lav might not like physical contact but she often sits near us, just out of arm’s reach, and we’re delighted she wants to do that.

^* Correct spelling. Full name is Lavander Graph Generator. Wally’s name is Walter Bunjamin. Previous rabbits include Clementine Bundango and Bunminster Fuller. The vet nurses delight in calling them out.

Reading:

• “It’s Strange To Be Talking About the Flaming Lips In The Past Tense”: An Interview With Steven Drozd — I loooove the Flips but lately had them down as a heritage act building up the pension fund, which is fair enough, they had a very good run. The notion of new work by Drozd is very interesting though.
• The Boring Internet — Another for the “the internet you loved is still there” pile.
• As Labour heads for a wipeout, a lesson: never fall for the ‘adults in the room’ line again “When the people in charge can no longer make arguments for their positions, they shut down the argument entirely by pleading for “grownups”."

Watching:

• Take a tour of my garden with me ‌(10:08) — This is uncannily like visiting my grandpa in the 80s.
• Low-head water turbine build tutorial ‌(4:37) — I’m probably never going to build one of these but I’ve loved learning how they work. (This isn’t really a tutorial, more an illustration to go alongside one.)
• How TV made American homes feel fake ‌(13:08) — The bit about the Brady Bunch house being an open plan fortress against the outside world reminded me of visiting my dad in his suburban Houston, Texas home in the late 80s. It was exactly like this.

Listening:

• Empire: Liberator of Latin America: Simón Bolívar vs The Spanish Empire (Part 1) — My knowledge of how South America became post-imperial sucks, so hoping this’ll help.

Looking:

• Removing all IR and UV filters from an old Canon EOS 600D to do full spectrum, UV and IR photography — I have an old DSLR I’m not using. I wonder if there’s a guide to hacking it to do this…

Telly:

• Wonder Man — Halfway through and I’m thinking, is this an autism metaphor? Admittedly I think that about a lot of media, but in this case I’m not alone.