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What started as a fun day at the corn maze (hosted by the orchard we visited a few days ago) turned into bringing home a bunny.
Yes, we have a bunny now. A cute, fluffy, ginger-colored nugget. Her name is Ginger Snap.
I had my two children and five of my friend's children as we worked through the corn maze. I just stayed at the rear of the line counting children the entire time, and letting them decide which way to go.
Next time, I won't let them take a picture of the map. We had almost no wrong turns, and got out of there way too quickly, thanks to their accurate counting of all the turns.
It was fun watching them figure it all out, though.
I had the youngest with me, a cute little tyke, that drew smiley faces in the dirt every 20 feet. She left a trail of smileys just like the Hansel and Gretel bread crumbs.
The orchard was packed on Sunday. Hundreds of cars parked everywhere a car could park. The line in the apple barn for paying was wrapped around most of the interior perimeter. Still, I scored more apples and cider, which we enjoyed on what little grass had no cars parked on it. That was the rolling hill.
Just in front of the apple barn is the rolling hill: all the kids must roll down the hill before they leave the orchard. It's just part of the fun. Some tuck their arms in and look like a burrito rolling away in a tidy fashion. Others look more like a tumbleweed tumbling away with arms and legs stuck out awkwardly. Either way, lots of fun for the kids.
While I let Miss Little Tyke play on the playground, all the others went to the barn. The barn-barn, as in farm animals. I stood in such a way to keep an eye on both the playground and the barn; just counting kids, then counting again, losing track of a darter, finding the darter, recounting... Moms never really stop the counting.
Rabbit trail: moms count kids in an endless loop no matter where we are: swimming (especially for swimming!), the mall, the park, a walk, anywhere. The only time we really stop counting is when everyone is either strapped into car seats or sound asleep in bed--their beds or not, sound asleep is good.
For the other rabbit trail, did you know McClure's Orchard just North of Peru, Indiana, on US31, has wine slushies and bourbon slushies? Not sure how the alcohol freezes, but that's not worth my time figuring out.
I don't care for much alcohol, but a day packed with people and biting black bugs (a.k.a. pirate bugs) and counting kids, those slushies didn't sound too bad. I had plain cider, though. It was yummy, cold, and kept me being able to keep counting kids.
For the final rabbit trail, this rabbit trailed us home. It happened in this way: after a lengthy time at the animal barn to hold the baby bunnies, who were the stars of the barn show at that moment, one of my children came back excitedly asking if we could please buy a bunny; they were for sale.
While I had no real hopes of persuading their daddy in that way, I was okay with a pet. We've never had one, and I think the kids, especially Kal, will do well with a little bundle of calm to love on at home.
Anyway, I told Kal to call Daddy. Pretty soon, he handed to phone back to me, and I heard the expected negative response and yada, yada, yada... all the reasons we've gone over a hundred times about why we don't need a pet.
Somehow that changed during a second phone call. With all the admonitions that he, Daddy, was NOT going to care for this rabbit, and that care would definitely be the kids' responsibility (which we all know diverts to Mom ultimately), Kris reluctantly gave permission.
We bought a fluffy ball of bunny calm about 2 seconds later. I'll never forget my children's faces when they saw we were taking home a bunny. It's better than Christmas morning delight. They lit up, their friends with them lit up, everyone started arguing about who should hold the bunny, and we finally got our fluff ball into the car and headed home.
Our friends already have a bunny, a huge Flemish giant, so being a newbie family for pets, we took all the advice we could from them and found a good crate and supplies at the farm store.
One of their teenage daughters came back home with us to help set up our Miss Fluff in her crate. I'm so thankful for her because even though I read up on how to care for bunnies online, it helps so much to have a visual demonstration from someone who already knows.
I think she's a Miss. We forgot to ask the lady at the barn, so I guess we'll find out for sure whenever we go to the vet. She's so fluffy all over, it's not immediately obvious what her gender is.
For now, we're calling her a she. If the vet says otherwise, so will we.
So, welcome to the family, Ginger Snap, Ginny, Ginger Bunn, Honey Bunn, Miss Fluff, Fluff Nugget... Nicknames mean she's in.
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