The Great Outdoors

For someone who grew up in a small town in Vermont, living in Connecticut has been a culture shock so to speak. The words overdeveloped, overpopulated, and overpriced all come to mind when I think about this state. Having spent all but the last 8 years of my life surrounded by mountains and wilderness I took for granted what was in my own backyard. I've since gained a healthy respect for where I come from. At the time I didn't appreciate the landscape and mountains. I didn't appreciate the deafening sound of the peepers at night. I didn't appreciate the quaintness of my small hometown. I didn't appreciate having to make due with the limited selection of products available at the local mom and pop shops . . . until it wasn't there.

The town/city I currently live in is very urbanized with every amenity at arms length. It's the kind of place people go when they need to go into town shopping for the day. Not the ideal place to live. Picture a Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds on every street corner, stop lights as far as the eye can see, 25 grocery stores within a 5 mile radius, any and every retail store or restaurant you can think of.

We live on a small street tucked away amidst all the hustle and bustle, for the time being. There is talk of a neighborhood lumber company constructing a larger facility on what I'm convinced is that last piece of wooded land in this town/city. This piece of property is situated on what is currently the end of our dead end street. It also happens to be home to several friendly deer like this young doe I recently photographed from my backyard. She was completely oblivious to my presence and four excited children. A family of young raccoons like the one below that I photographed up a tree in my yard also call this neighborhood home. A mother and two babies have been spotted playing in a brook that runs through the woods. Surely the sights and sounds of yet another unnecessary construction project will have a negative impact on the future of this small but thriving Eco-system.

**The first photo in this sequence was taken in Woodford,VT

Tort vs. Color - Round 1 -

I always hear the argument that the overall quality of the black tortoise holland lops is superior to color in general. Which may be true in some cases but that statement holds no ground in my rabbitry. Although blues have grown to be my ultimate favorite I do not seek one color over another. It happens to be that out of the 30 rabbits that make up my herd only two are torts. One solid and one broken. Not because I dislike the color but for the simple fact that out of the litters born here the color rabbits are always much nicer quality than the torts.

I brought this topic up because I recently had one of the rare torts pop up in a litter. Along side it was a broken cream and a blue. In a neighboring nest box there was a litter of two blues and a blue tort.

The kits are only five days old currently but assuming the little tort survives to the 4 week mark I would like to hold a friendly competition among he/she and one of the fellow color kits. I will post milestone photos every 2 weeks of them to compare. I will be pleasantly surprised if this little tort proves to be better than any of the others.

The Grass Is Always Greener

There is nothing quite as amusing as a Holland Lop in explorer mode. Move over Jacques Cousteau and make way for the next great explorer

-ELS's Royce-

Now that the temperature is warming up I've started taking the rabbits outside for excercise in the evening. It's definately more stimulating to the senses than sitting in what is essentially a larger version of a cage that we like to call an excercise pen. Although it's convenient in the winter nothing beats some good old fashioned frolicking through the fields in the spring. Besides, you couldn't capture shots like this sitting behind a wire fence.

THE END

The Sepia Gallery

.:Sepia In Spring:.

"Pieces Of The Past"

"A Watcher Among Us"

"Untitled"

"Beauty Is Behind Us"

" Nature's Roller Coaster"

"Vying For Attention"

April Showers Bring May Litters

Maybe that's not exactly how the old saying goes but that is what it seems. May is off to a jump start with three litters being born into the herd thus far. Small litters at that but beggars can't be choosers. The largest of the three consists of two fat and sassy little kits born to Trio's Abby- a solid chestnut doe who gained a single leg for a class win before veering in the direction of brood doe. The sire is Ivy Crescent Brando, pictured on the home page for some time.

The other two litters were both singletons so I put them together to keep each other warm.

Once the babies arrive I prefer to leave the nest boxes out of the cages at all times. Twice a day I bring the does to their individual box to feed and then return them to their cage. This takes place in the evening when I feed and in the morning when I hay. It has been my experience that left to their own devices my does get themselves into trouble by over mothering the kits or the polar opposite which is neglect. By "over mothering" I mean always hopping in and out of the box resulting in scattered kits. As many HL breeders can vouch for the fact that there are enough hurdles to overcome in raising this breed. It is my goal to eliminate as many potential risks as possible. Usually by 2 1/2 weeks when the eyes have fully opened and the fur has come in I will leave the box in with mom. By this time they are becoming curious about their environment and often times beginning to venture out of the box to explore. I hope to see these kits at that milestone in the coming weeks.

I Don't Know What's Considered A Great Photo But . . .

I like these. The first three were taken while I accompanied my family on a fishing trip a couple weeks ago. I'm not an avid fisherman er...? woman so I went off exploring. This is what I found.

The rest are just some spring themed shots from the past few weeks.

Cameras...Convenient...Rattlesnakes...Not So Much

I try to bring my camera everywhere with me and enjoy photographing everything from nature to live music concerts.

My family spends alot of time outdoors in the woods hiking and riding bicycles and it never fails that a camera comes in handy during these excursions. Last summer we were out for a bike ride and ahead of us were two women afraid of something just off the bike path in some brush. When we reached them they told us a huge snake had just slithered across the path in front of them. One of them pointed to something in a patch of leaves and upon closer inspection my husband revealed it was a Timber rattlesnake. Incredibly rare in the state of Connecticut, but there it was coiled up in an attempt to relax and enjoy some afternoon sunbathing.They say you can estimate the age by the number of rattles on the tail and if that is the case this one was approximately 12 years old.