a midlife crisis of seemingly epic proportions

as told through a hair-story.

the first pic shows poor mum combing out my beaver tail.

i'd been flirting with the idea of dreads.

she took care of that.

and then she took me to the salon for a root treatment.

last shot is without filter for truest colour.

i do not care if this is shallow.  it's the best i've got right now.

Henry's harecut

Cosset's harecut

we are out of control! i should be thrilled with the dense and quick growth on my cosset lamb, but i'm always amazed how much work her coat is. i spent at least two hours today working on her, and it's only been a month since i clipped her. i am seriously thinking of finding a pet grooming school and taking a class on how to use clippers and blowers since i am too afraid of them (the tools, not the bunz) to do a good job. but just brushing and pulling out loose hair was so tactile and meditative this afternoon - i really wouldn't mind if that's all we do, ever.

you know how you can read something over and over, and then one day you read something new and it just clicks? there was a description on one of the angora message boards about how french angoras have non-synchronous coat growth, so that they are losing hair all the time and have hair at different stages. finally i think i understand and will have an easier time of managing my hairy friends. it's just been strange because they are each a little different in terms of their hair growth and grooming needs. Prissy and Butch really require minimal grooming. Prissy has tons of guard hairs and nice thick wool underneath that (almost) never matts. I really don't think she's a satin at all now that I've learned and seen more. Mr. Butch's gorgeous clouds are so fine that he'll matt a little if it's humid, but his coat grows back beautifully even after clipping and he does well with brushing once a week or even less. Cosset and her baby Junior are a totally different story. i think they are actually wooly wookies. they seem to require a fulltime aesthetician (that's me) to keep them on track. luckily all this wonderful fur they are growing is a boon, not a curse, and it's worth every last second it takes to care for them.

i got some exciting news yesterday that the local community artspace has a studio opening up that i could move my fiber-y endeavors. it might go against good sense in a way, putting the cart before the horse as they say, to rent a studio before i become an artist. but but but, it isn't expensive at all, and it would be a way of keeping my house from being taken over by fiber - plus i could meet people and all that. the place has a great vibe, and the working studio space even includes gallery space, coffee shop, and an outdoor area where they have events. they also have a bunch of working fiber artists, even have weaving classes, so i'd learn a lot too. it would also help me in terms of so many personal goals - structuring my time, organizing my stash, and working toward my dreams. kinda scary, but i think it's a-Go.

well, let's see... a couple of things have been happening...

i'm on the verge of a big life change, and need to make some decisions. i am just not sure whether i want to prioritize an academic life, something i've worked hard for over the last 8 years. or, something more related to art and farming. and whether we may want to raise rabbits. not that those are either/or, or easy questions, just things i think about. i'm not sure if my lack of interest in academia these days is burnout, or my usual scatteredness, or just plain laziness, or really a signal that i should follow my dreams and instincts. i've never loved teaching, and the market is awful, but i do love academia, and i'm likely to be happy doing it. and, it is probably a safer option. but even though i'll definitely finish school, i just don't know that a professor job is the way i want to go. my vision of myself in the future is not that, and i don't think it ever was. i really don't buy the notion that there is one purpose in life, although i'd love to have a little daemon pop down and tell me that i was born to do this one thing ... but there is this sense of a path, something drawing me in another direction.

it seemed as though i had a breakthrough with ms. cosset. she still is not enamored of me, i assume from all the dematting. getting the poor rabbit completely dematted was an awful task, and even though i tried to make it as easy as possible on her and split it into many small sessions, she still seems to associate me with unpleasantness. so the other night we were sitting on the kitchen floor together and she actually came up and nosed me. she had never done this before, or made any move for me at all - instead sometimes making noises or even boxing my hand. so this little gesture on her part seemed momentous! and then last night, i was feeling all happy to have her out, and brush through her quickly growing hair with no matting whatsoever... but then i saw something odd... it looked like dried poo but sort of to the side - a large globby thing just stuck in hair and deep down into her skin. i did some internet research and it turns out that there is a scent gland there and this was a large waxy secretion. so i carefully cleaned her up and gently got the gunk out, but she was very pissed and it was unnerving. i mean, does everyone have these issues with rabbits? maybe this is normal? but it looked like a recipe for disaster, especially if it were hot out. or is my anxiety around the cleanliness of these rabbits related to some strange psychosis of my own? i would think so except that i've seen what can happen, rabbits infested with maggots, and it is the stuff of nightmares. so i am determined to keep a close eye on them, and keep learning, and hopefully they will come to understand that i'm not trying to be an asshole.

Another day, another haircut

Has anyone seen Bunspace? I just don't know what to make of such a thing. I have not made profiles or blogs for my rabbits yet, although I guess it could happen. I resisted Facebook for the longest time.

And so the uber-cute blower I bought: the rabbits hate it. Poor Butch started to freaky freak when I turned it on. I kinda freaked too - the damn thing is LOUD. I guess I'm going to have to turn it on every day for a while and get us used to the sound. I started plucking Mr. Butch and partway through decided to switch to scissors. He didn't seem to mind either way, but the plucking seemed to take a lot longer, and I could see pink rabbit skin on his back, which didn't seem like a good thing. Even though the plucked fiber is longer and even more luscious, the cloud of satin I ended up with is quite a haul - and the little bun that was under all that fiber is the cutest.

Prissy's haircut

I was starting to worry that Prissy's lack of appetite wasn't due to stress or her age, but wool block. She eats and drinks, but not much, and so I figured I'd better get her coat off asap. I set up a nice little grooming station on my clothes dryer, where she could look out onto the yard, and smell spring and watch the chickens dusting and strutting. I just scissored her and it was much faster and easier than I expected. The only issue was that she wouldn't sit still and kept hopping back and forth and digging and climbing, which was fun, but at the end I held her on my lap. I was trying so hard to be careful that I didn't cut her close at all, and ended up with tons of second cuts, but still a huge bag of lovely cloudy white fluff. So I don't think I'll need or want clippers just for a typical shearing. The whole process took only maybe an hour! I got worried about her being cold in the night and ran out to check on her and either cover her up or bring her inside, but she seems perfectly fine and quite pleased with her new look.