The heart asks...

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The privilege to die.

Emily Dickinson wrote this poem and it has always haunted me. Anymore I can't read the poem without thinking of the millions of chickens crammed into battery cages...who...when young had hearts that asked this world for pleasure. Instead they spent short miserable lives with no anodynes to alleviate their suffering...all because we humans wanted money or a taste.

Each cow, each pig, each chicken, each sheep, each goat, each dog, each cat, each rabbit, each being that is a child of this earth...each one was born with a heart that first asked for pleasure...and billions...billions of them quickly wished for anodynes that weren't granted. I have no doubt so very very many were relieved to have the escape of death visit them.

We have no right to deny young hearts the pleasure of the world...we have no right to deny any heart such pleasure.

We have no right and yet we deny them and hurt them for selfish reasons and we provide them with no anodynes and then we kill them. We diminish and degrade ourselves. Never wonder if there are monsters...there are...shamefully and sadly...there are. And they are not rare...they are not few in number...those who choose to not behave monstrously are the few. Sadly and shamefully.

Bunny Bites?

Bunny Bites is the name given to a cookbook (now available) created from recipes submitted by friends of Heartland Rabbit Rescue. Volunteers worked on creating the cookbook as a fund-raising activity on behalf of the bunnies that live out at the shelter.

The recipes are vegetarian or vegan with information in the front of the cookbook about various ingredients that can be used make a vegetarian item into a vegan one.

Cover photo

We just tried out the submission by a 6 year old bunny loving girl from Australia (Elisheba) and it is very good.....I fully expect it to become a regular dish at our house. She named it Shrek Soup (subtitle: swamp slime with eyeballs). Her imagination sounds like mine was at age 6 (and still is to some degree).

The ingredients include cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and spinach (with some others). The first two are definitely not foods I was familiar with at age 6. If her soup is any indicator, she has a bright future at creating recipes that will knock your socks off.

The book also contains bunny anecdotes from folks that are privileged to live with these fur people.

So....the book sells for $10 (plus shipping...email for details) and  ordered by emailing bunnybitescookbook@gmail.com.

If you live in Norman Oklahoma the books are also available at Earth Natural Foods and at Main Street Photo/Video. Should you decide to order a number of books and are in the area....some sort of delivery or pick-up option can likely be worked out.

There are about 120 recipes of all types including appetizers and desserts. There is a black bean dip recipe in there that results in absolutely the best bean dip I have ever eaten.

The editor of the cookbook writes an interesting note at the beginning about her relationship to vegetarian and vegan cooking as well as the impact volunteering has had on her.

The best thing about the cookbook (aside from the food that can be prepared) is that all proceeds will go toward supporting the fur folks that live out at the shelter.

It would make a great gift item.....one with a dual mission.....maybe introducing someone to vegetarian/vegan cooking and........providing funds to care for animal people with no forever family to live with.

Jack says "buy the cookbook"

Gwendolyn says.."buy the cookbook".

The baby boys....are too young to talk.

Midnite says...gimme a carrot.

All the above fur folks live out at Heartland, buying  the cookbook helps them. Thank you.

Even if you can't help out by buying, do take some time a find an animal shelter that can use your efforts.....volunteers are vital to keep most rescue operations going. If you can't adopt, foster....if you can't foster,volunteer....if you can't volunteer, donate. Do all of these things if possible.

The vast majority of animal people that end up in shelters do so because some human animal(s) screwed up or were cruel or neglectful or irresponsible or interfered in their lives some way or another.....the animal people did not create the situation that led to their being in a shelter.....we did.....and whatever we can do to make life better for them.....is only proper.

October Hijinks on bunnycam..........

Wednesday October 19th (yesterday) was truly a gorgeous day here in central Oklahoma and one of the goals was to get as many of the bunny people outside as possible. The video is about 5 minutes long and shows why we try to get these guys outside whenever we can......there is little doubt that they love it.

The enclosures and coverings are for safety from predators and.....these terminally cute in appearance fur people will.....sometimes.....get into rather major confrontations with one another, hence unless friendliness is known to exist, they are separated into their own patch of earth.

A guide to the stars would include knowing that the black fur person that puts on a major show several times is Simon, the white with spots fur person that looks like an animated toy is Sophie and the nearest to the camera black with white shoulders fur person is Betsy. The fur people couple over to the right of Betsy and Sophie is Bella and Sachel. A brief cameo by the Heartland Rabbit Rescue founder and director occurs at about 3:30 into the clip......thanks Jeannie!

If you aren't volunteering and getting to hang out with some animal folks....then both you and the animal people are missing out. Enjoy....

If you can't adopt, foster....if you can't foster,volunteer....if you can't volunteer, donate. Do all of these things if possible.

Few things can make you feel better than watching a bunch of bunny people enjoying themselves. They are unique beings indeed.

Expand your vocabulary......

Bycatch: Bycatch occurs when fishing equipment, such as giant nets or longlines with thousands of baited hooks, snag animals other than what they are intended to catch.

Fish are also animals, we often forget (or ignore) this fact. Fish are sentient animals that feel pain, apparently have complex emotional lives  and can engage in some types of sophisticated thinking that humans are unable to achieve until at least 4 years of age.

Shrimp, the crawly looking animal that so many people like to eat, are also fish....they too can suffer.  Jonathan Safran Foer, in his book Eating Animals, also points out that the human appetite for shrimp has additional amount of misery added to it (additional to the suffering of the shrimp):

The average shrimp-trawling operation throws 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it
captures overboard, dead or dying, as bycatch. (Endangered species amount to much of this bycatch.) Shrimp account for only 2 percent of global seafood by weight, but shrimp trawling accounts for 33 percent of global bycatch. We tend not to think about this because we tend not to know about it. What if there were labeling on our food letting us know how many animals were killed to bring our desired animal to our plate? So, with trawled shrimp from Indonesia, for example, the label might read:   26 pounds of other sea animals were killed and tossed back into the ocean for every 1 pound of this shrimp. p. 49

The amount of global bycatch per year? One source estimates this to be on the order of 20 million tons. 

Besides discarding millions of tons of unwanted fish, hundreds of thousands of small whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, sharks and seabirds are killed in the process of capturing target species by trawls, seine and drift nets, and longlines.

The blog: "We're All Animals" recently posted some excellent information about shrimp, fish and fishing.  Andrew Hunt, the author of the blog is a fine writer and I urge you to read the post.

Bunny News: Out at the Heartland Rabbit Rescue this morning I had the good fortune to be present at what was a wonderful event to behold.  Benson is a small black bunny....very small, he may be the smallest (full-grown) bunny living there.  Benson is shy, shy to the point of isolating himself inside a small shelter in his enclosure...he rarely shows himself and is essentially a hermit. 

I was told that he was terrified when picked up and if placed outside he was too frightened to explore and would hide under or in anything he could. 

This is not a good thing, rabbits like people, need to be stimulated, rabbits need to hop, explore, sniff, taste grass....be a rabbit.  So, this morning Benson was taken outside and placed in an enclosure...before we could shut off one end he decided to go exploring....he hopped and sniffed and looked around and hopped some more. 

Benson and Midnight

He was bunnying right along and even allowed Midnight the pony to greet him, even though he jumped a little when Midnight snorted.  It was one of the neatest thing I have ever seen.  Jeanne (the founder and hero of HRR) said that this was not the Benson she knew.

To be a witness when someone makes their world bigger (in a happy way) is about as good as it gets.  Volunteering with homeless and abandoned animal people offers benefits unobtainable anywhere else. I feel humbled that Benson decided to grow a little when I happened to be there. Thank you very much, Benson (and Midnight).

Bunny snacks...............

Mother bunny, who was featured in a video here on July 26th, continues to thrive.  She is an excellent mom and her two little ones are growing, growing, growing.  All this parenting takes energy and mom is quite a chow hand. Here is a video of her getting free access (briefly) to a raisin bonanza. 

She resides at Heartland Rabbit Rescue and you can read about the odyssey which led her to the shelter using this link.   Rescue and shelter operations like Heartland are often the last resort for animal people with no where else to go.  These are private organizations dependent on the resources of the folks that run them, donations from the community and volunteers.  They would not exist without the dedication of the folks that run them and often the demands and expense of caring for the animal residents is staggering.  I am in awe of these heroes for animal people and urge you to seek out shelter and rescue operations in your community and donate what you can, money, services, labor, time, etc.

The payback for volunteering is immense, one of my biggest pleasures from spending time out at Heartland is having the opportunity to become acquainted with so many different rabbit people.  Each one is a unique individual, with their own way of being in the world and their behavior changes from time to time depending on how they feel.  Just like human animals (but you already knew that).  Volunteer, help out, it is good for your spirit and for the animal people.

Now, if you will take a moment to follow this link you can view a brief (about 60 seconds) video of a cottontail rabbit person obviating the notion that all rabbit people are timid, frightened beings that flee danger quickly.  Rabbit people are as different from one another as human people are, if you doubt that, go ask the snake person shown in the video clip.

1,000 Canadian Rabbits to move to Texas

I ran across this story in the Victoria and Vancouver Island newspaper about feral rabbits overrunning the University of Victoria campus.  These bunnies were going to be killed unless placement could be found for them.  Voila, apparently a rescue shelter in East Texas is going to take 1,000 of the rabbits.  Wild Rose Rescue Ranch is going to provide them with a sheltered, protected area after they are trapped, spayed and neutered and then transported to Texas.  The link to Wild Rose will take you to a story on their website about Noah the one-legged pigeon that nurtures baby bunnies (among other species).

An organization called Fur-Bearer Defenders is donating $50,000 to help pay for the spaying and neutering.  Their mission is to end all forms of trapping used by the commercial fur industry.

Excellent........

Kiara being groomed.

Closer to home, back at Heartland Rabbit Rescue a couple of  hard-working young volunteers spent some time grooming Kiara and Sophie.

Sophie at the outdoor spa.