Year of the Bunny

Hard to believe it's been a whole year since we brought Bruno home on Easter from our friends Zachary and Karynn!  He has been such a fun pet.  He's super soft, he is so cute, and best of all, he is so quiet!

We used to have his pen in the study, but when Verity was born, we needed to put the little playpen in there so she could nap downstairs as a newborn with the study doors shut.  So we moved Bruno into the schoolroom, where he reigns as the Rivendell mascot.  ("Go, Fighting Bunnies!"  Ha!)  When someone is in there working, we let him run around the entire schoolroom, although we have to make sure all the computer charging cords are up, or else he will nibble on them.  We now have quite a few books that have little nibbles taken out of the edges as well!  Bruno also loves to chew up paper left on the floor, so "my bunny ate my homework" could be an excuse, except that you shouldn't have left your paper on the floor in the first place . . .  The entryway is hard wood, and for awhile, Bruno was very scared of the hard wood, so he always stayed in the schoolroom.  But eventually he got over his fears and started venturing out into the entryway, so we now put our whiteboard across the entrance to the schoolroom.  It fits perfectly!  Bruno loves running laps around the room and kicking up his heels.  He's so cute!

We bought him a little cat tunnel/scratching thing with little balls hanging down to bat around.  Sometimes he's more into it than other times, LOL.  What can I say--he's a spoiled little bunny!  We had to put the cardboard on top of the cage in back because he figured out he could jump on top of the cage and then out back in June last year.  We were going to make something more permanent, but you know, once the cardboard worked, pretty much everything else was a higher priority, so we never got around to it.   The clear plastic in the front of his cage is part of a mat that goes under an office chair.  When he was in the study, Bruno used to push out his cage with his nose so that he could lay on the plastic chair mat.  It must feel nice and cool!  So when we moved him into the schoolroom, we cut off part of another mat and put it in his cage for his napping enjoyment.  He usually flops down there after he's been running around for awhile.

Sometimes the kids will let him run around the playroom (on the other side of the entryway from the schoolroom), which has the added benefit of having doors AND no cords.  We also take him outside when the weather is nice, and he loves to hop around the yard and dig in the mulch.  He's been hiding under the minivan in the driveway the past few times we took him out, though.  I think he feels vulnerable in the yard without our big oak tree having really any leaves yet!  We see a hawk circling around up high, and I'm guessing Bruno sees him too.

Bruno would make a tasty meal for a hawk!  He's been living the good life here, and he's become a bit chubby, shall we say, in the past year.  "Less carrots and more exercise" was our New Year's resolution for him.  You would think it would be impossible to gain much weight at all on a diet consisting primarily of kale and timothy hay, but apparently that is not true, at least for bunny metabolism.  Bruno loves his kale, but he is not such a huge fan of spinach.  Romaine is okay, and he loves eating pieces of banana for a treat.  Surely he is not gaining too much weight from eating toilet paper tubes!  He loves to nibble on them, and fortunately for him, we have a constant supply of them, LOL.

I'm so glad we went ahead and got Bruno!  He is such a sweetheart, and the perfect pet for us right now!