Rabbit Hutches Day 5 & 6 the Finishing

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 My new bunny condos. They will be pimpin it yo.

Today it was hot. Like way too much sweat on the goddamned under boob hot. Which meant that we didn't actually start working until around, oh, 7pm or so. Luckily a thunderstorm had passed over head and took the outside temperature down to bearable.

Like all projects we had worked on it sporadically over the past few days as out schedules permitted. So the doors got made and the outside painted which Scott had to do by himself because I had to treat the entire house mobile home for fleas. It was better that he wasn't in the house. It was better for everyone.*

And of course we had done minor things to it around our other tasks but this evening was the big push. So we fixed up a few minor odds and ends and then we put the goddamned roof on.

So to began with we had to add some wire at the top of the cage dividers because I figured that if we said, “eh rabbits can't jump that high” that Mr. Bun would find his way into Miss Bun's cage and we would have a whole other problem on our hands. Unfortunately this involved me climbing into the cage which was actually big enough to accommodate that fairly well, except that I had to put all of my wight on the center beam because I did not want my ass to come crashing down through the wire. Also The staple gun is evil. Evil I tell you.

I have this theory that staple guns were made for those old timey men in those weird weight lifter outfits with the hands that could crush walnuts. For everyone else we are just fucked. So instead of the staple going into the wood flush with the surface they always stick out slightly and it bothers me. Also I kept missing the wire and having to put in more staples.

Also, Scott was working on the roof at the time which meant that I was hearing what sounded like two giant metal robot butterflies have a battle above me while he slid the metal roof pieces in place.

Fun.

Then we had to trim off the excess roofing. My job was to hold the roofing up so he could cut it and also keep the roofing from cutting his face open when he finished a piece cause roofing is a bitch like that. We also realized that we should have been wearing hearing protecting but at that point it was kinda too late to do anything about it.

Whoops.

I also learned that holding metal roofing while someone else sawzalls it means your hands will go kinda numb. Kinda.

But we got it done and found that we had enough daylight left to move the rabbits out of the hot narrow shed that they had been living in and into their new bunny condos. Despite the fact that the old cages were shitty and I could only get one arm in a time and everyone who had ever owned a rabbit just cringed because they know exactly what I am talking about (think rabbit ping pong with your hand as the paddle.)

However once the nervousness wore off they seemed to quite happy. They were playing with their hay and exploring their nest boxes and hopping around and enjoying the fact they finally had SPACE! These new hutches are more then twice what they had in their cages and I fully expect that come morning I will find them sprawled out in happy exhaustion after spending the whole cool of the night rearranging their hay and putting things to rights.

Meaning that they will be doing the bunny equivalent of hanging pictures and moving the coffee table around.

And nobody died and nothing exploded.

So I'm counting this as a win.

*There was a point that he had me pass him a clean shirt through the door, plus his phone and some deodorant so he could go to town. I'm not really sure he needed anything in town, but there you go.

 Confused? Here's Part 1.

Rabbit Hutches Day 4 The Sawdusting.

We came, we sawed and we conquered.

Today we did the framing, put the cage dividers in, put the plywood on the roof and covered it with roofing paper. Everything went pretty well.

No, it actually did this time.

Okay, so there was the one bit where we were using a chainsaw because we did not want to drag the generator all the way down there and we didn't trim one post at the correct angle and then we tried to trim it by hand but then we hit a screw that we couldn't get back out of the wood and now we had to drag the motherfucking sawzall down there anyway.

Or the bit where we test fitted the door but then when we came back to install it it was too large. I am blaming that of fucking witches because that goddamned door fit like a dream until we needed to put on the hinges.

Or the thunderstorm that was menacing us and rumbling until it started sprinkling and then we were all like 'oh we had better put shit away now before the real rain starts.' So I ran up and put everything away which involved wrestling the table saw into the shed by myself and then we rushed to throw the roof plywood up and slap on the roofing paper and then it never did rain really and the sun came out.

Motherfucking weather.

Plus I got sawdust both down my shit and then of course into my damn bra. If you are a man you may not be able to grasp this, ah sensation, but it's pretty much like rubbing your nips on sandpaper. Oh and also got sawdust in my eye somehow, despite the eye protection which I am beginning to think is against me somehow.

Yeah. But other then that it went pretty damn well. We just have to put on the metal roofing, make the other three doors, add nest/bedroom/hang out n' party boxes and then paint the damn thing.

So hopefully this project will keep rocking along like this and nothing terrible will happen to it.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

I just jinxed it didn't I?

Fuck.

Want more Rabbit Hutch Adventures? Or course you do Here's Part 5 & 6.

Confused? Here's Part 1.

Rabbit Hutches Day 3 The Pour

Today, today we poured the concrete slab. It was slabby.

There was the obligatory run to town in the middle of it because we only had half the concrete we needed, and the usual feeling that I have coated all my sinus cavities in concrete dust because I can never remember to put on goddamned dust mask.

Other then that it went well.

Except for the part where I accidentally set a 94 pound bag of concrete down on my own foot. I know it was 94 pounds because it said so on the bag. Helpfully. In big block letters. I know you all think I am strong for a girl, and I am, but now I know my limits. It's 94 pounds. Specifically my right foot knows my limits.

The worst part was that I couldn't pull my foot out from under the bag of doom because I was afraid of ripping it and seeing my hard earned effort spill out all over the lawn. I had to call Scott over to help me, only to realize that the way I was standing meant that he couldn't help me at all which meant he got to stand there while I slowly heaved a bag of cement off my foot.

Fun.

The other problem, which is a classic example of not thinking things through on my part, was that I put the leaky ass motherfucking hose uphill from me. Which of course turned mixer land into a clay mud mess that tried to both make me slip off my feet and also suck my shoes off.

As pours go this was a small one, but I still woke up extra early. Even though our hey lets go buy more supplies because we are bad at eyeballing quantity like that still meant we were working through part of the heat of the day.

But it's done now. And I resisted my urge to go draw penises in it or something equally juvenile. Only to discover that one of the cats had already tagged it with her gang sign while I was having lunch. Or at least I assume that was her gang sign.*

Bitch ass cat.

Anyway the sun is setting and I am tired and I still have cement gunk on my arms that showering and sink scrubbing and cursing the cruel hand of fate have yet to remove, so I am going to stop typing this shit and go scrub my arms some more.

Hey, do you think I could use the pot scrubber?

No?

Oh well.

UPDATE: Yeah, have you ever tried washing your own arms off in the kitchen sink? I wouldn't recommend it.

*It was a perfect, neat paw print, made into the right side about as far as she could reach without having to actually step onto the stab. You can't convince me that wasn't deliberate.

 

Want more Rabbit Hutch Adventures? Or course you do Here's Part 4. 

Confused?  Here's Part 1.

Building Rabbit Hutches.

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So today we started construction on four rabbit hutches that we kinda need to make because the buns are currently living in a falling down shed that is slowly dying around them. Also the shed is the middle of the field, a hot sunny weedy ass field.

So we are moving them under the trees by the chicken coup where they will not get slow roasted during the summer so maybe I won't have to keep bringing them frozen bottles of water to keep them cool. Not that it worked anyway because they seem to think that the bottles are the devil sent from hell to destroy them and wont sit anywhere near the damn things.

Ingrates.

Anyway, our plan was to build one long hutch that would be divided into four sections. Even though I only have three rabbits because you never know when you could need another cage for something in a hurry because life is unpredictable like that.

So today was spent preparing to pour a cement slab to put it on. Why are we pouring a slab you ask? Because I live on top of a fucking mountain and we routinely get 60-80 mile on hour winds in the winter and I don't want my rabbit homes to do a face plant into a foot of snow.

That might put them off there feed a bit.

So we are embedding the posts into the concrete and praying that nature doesn't see that as a challenge.

So today we used my personal hero, King the backhoe, to dig out the area where the slab will go. Which was awesome because backhoes are fucking sweet and don't let anyone tell you different. And digging by hand sucks big time.

What were we talking about?

Oh yeah. Well we did have to dig by hand a little to level it out, but mostly it was good. Then we did a bunch of boring shit like making the frame for the concrete pour and leveling it, and also adding rocks to the hole slip form style* to make it appear like we had actually out in a stone foundation for this thing even though we haven't because we are fucking crazy. And willing include stonework into every project we do even though it might not be necessary.

Right.

Then we had to put in gravel which is nowhere near the build site because that would make sense. So we loaded up King and then it kinda occurred to us that it was like six and we we both starving so we kinda gave up on working for the day and went and ate dinner.

And by 'give up on working for the day' I mean that we ate dinner and then cleaned the site and prepared a path to get the wheelbarrow in and then Scott made a batch of beer and I vacuumed the floors and wrote this entry and cleaned out Miss Peeperington's cage. And took a shower.

You know what? I think I'm just going to go to sleep.

Probably in this chair.

* Slip form stone work is stone veneer done by smashing rocks up against the inside of a set of forms and then backfilling the forms with cement. Therefore the mason works blind, and cannot see the final face until he or she is done. Also, with this system, rocks can and will pop off the face and need to be shoved back in, as well as chipping off the excess cement that has oozed out between the rocks. It's really not a very good method at all, but if you want to learn more you will just have to Google it cause I am actually writing this a 10 at night and feel like I have been run over by a freight train. 

Want more Rabbit Hutch Adventures? Or course you do Here's Part 2.