[Bunny Fiction] Take me out to the hockey game! (Part Two)(

She couldn't do worse than the 2012 Canucks.. :P

"SHOOOOOOOT!!!" Mr Mick yelled, thumping his hindfoot in frustration.

They'd divied up who would support which team, and unfortunately the red team was getting slaughtered 10 - 2.  The blue team could just outskate them.

Three on three hockey, it turned out, was a much faster paced game than regular hockey. The only play stops were for penalties and injuries. When a goal was scored the goalie just shot the puck to one of his own players, the opposing team having to retreat to their own blue line. Six bodies skating the ice instead of ten meant much more room, which was an advantage to the quick and nimble skaters, a huge disadvantage to those who relied on size and strength.

Speedy, Cookies and Twinkle had appeared with two pizzas, a case of grape soda and some peanuts. The other buns had all been very impressed with the vegetarian taco pizza, it was just full of rabbit yummy things like lettuce and tomatoes and cheese.

With scooching and reordering and careful debate (Maddy ordered everyone but Hannah about), they'd gotten comfortable, shared food and divided up cheering.

"You have cheese in your mane, dear." Hannah said to Maddy with no little amount of superiority.

"Oh dear, Harrington, sweetie, can you get that out for me?" Maddy asked, batting eyelashes at the buck.

"I, er.. uhm.." He looked between the two does and decided now would be a very good time to clean between his toes.

"Tsk. Guess you'll just have to groom yourself." Hannah said with the fake sweetness only women can achieve.

Weasley head-nudged Mr Mick, "I thought we'd brought all bunnies, not a couple of cats."

Mr Mick sniggered in that male thinks he's superior way. He then turned to find two females, ears back, glaring at him. "He said it!" He yelped in defense.

"I know." Hannah said, leaning towards Mick, "But Weasley doesn't have a chance of avoiding me if I try to shove him off this beam.." She let the threat hang.

"Er, sorry?" he offered, backpeddling verbally and physically. He then stopped. "WOO! WE SCORED!" He bounced up and down in spot. "We scored! We scored!"

Speedy added his own foot thumps to the cheering and happiness of Mick, Weasley and Cookies. "Er.. but aren't we still losing 12-3?"

"SHush! We can make a come back!" Mr Mick boxed the air in excitement. "We can do it! C'mon Red!!"

Weasley rolled his eyes, "Even I can see they haven't a hop in hell."

The buzzer sounded the end of the second period and the two teams switched sides and the clock indicated the five minute break.

"We should have brought a litterbox." Twinkle said quietly, feeling a bit out of place with all these new chatty rabbits.

"Oh! I have one in the bunny portal.. The hay might be old tho, I don't think its been changed in a couple days." Weasley snapped a paw and the portal opened for him and he dug around inside before dragging out a decent sized litter pan.

The rabbits took their turns and were ready for the last period with Weasley deciding it was probably a good time for a nap. Hockey food was nice enough, but it wasn't much of a fun game to listen to. It was probably better on TV when you had a commentator to tell you what was going on. Mick and Speedy were enthusiastic, but they weren't very helpful.

"Is there any pizza left?" Harrington asked politely.

"There's some still in Maddy's mane," Hannah said smugly.

"HAY! Just because your fur is bland and easy to care for doesn't mean mine is!" Maddy thumped.

Hannah gave the young thing a quick growl at the insult, "At least I can eat without wearing my food!"

"Sometimes." Harrington muttered.

Hannah turned on him.

"Er, I'll just be over here.." He hopped over peedy to investigate the possibility of pizza remains in the boxes.

Speedy looked from one lady to the other, he leaned over and grabbed the cheese out of Maddy's mane. "I think you're both really pretty," he said to his toes. He was pretty sure that his fur had turned pink with his embarassment.

"Aww." Hannah gave him a lick upside the ear.

Maddy snuggled up beside him. "Aren't you the sweetest?" She rubbed her chin against his nose, "That's a lovely accent, by the way, where did you say you were from?"

"Merp." Speedy managed to the snickers of Mick and Weasley.

He was saved from having to respond by the third period starting.

It seemed to zip by, with blue taking the win with a 27-6 final score. They all agreed that poor Red's goalie really didn't have much of a chance with zero defense.

The bunnies parted, leaving Weasley, Mr Mick and Speedy to clean up and make sure they left nothing but tumbleweed fur behind.

Speedy was stifling yawns as he headed home. It had been a very long day already, and his Mum thought he was out in the yard hiding under a rose bush. He had to be extra sneaky to get back to it without his Mum seeing him coming out of the linen closet.

Weasley let Mick drop him off and guide him back to his bed, too tired to navigate himself. "That was fun." Weasley mumbled.

"Even if our team lost." Mr Mick muttered. He didn't like losing, even by proxy!

"Next time pick the other team." Weasley offered.

Mr Mick tilted his head sideways trying to grasp that logic. He finally gave it up as a lost cause and said his goodbyes before heading to his own home.

He managed to arrive in time to nom on The Boy's sneakers and dash back to the safety of "his area" that he, of course, couldn't get out of under any circumstances so The Boy must have left them somewhere he shouldn't.

Pizza, friends, and being mean to The Boy with no possibility of punishment. It had been a good day.

Bunny Video + Quick Update!

Still alive in my corner of south-wet BC, just life decided to happen and my creativity went flush.
I will hopefully get our bunny hockey game finished over the weekend!
P.S. .. I think the song sooo perfect for that video..

A goose story for Miss 'Shelle.

Chilliwack, BC is seperated by the Trans-Canada Highway. (aka "The Number One", "The Highway", "Trans-Can" etc) On the north side is "Old Chilliwack" and on the south side is "Sardis." I live on the south side. The main street in Sardis is "Vedder Road" and the two busiest intersections in the entire Chilliwack area are on this road. One, by the highway and the malls, and the other at the crossroads of shopping and residential. 

Along the road, a few blocks long, between a Tim Hortons and an Indian Buffet restaurant, is green space. On the other side of Vedder is older housing with their own creeks, some with ponds. The ponds and creeks are a favourite place for ducks and geese to nest. However, there's not a lot of space for take offs and landings in the residential waters. The green space across the way has much wider waters if more downtrodden grass and reeds. So, once the babies are waddling, ducks and geesies take their babies across the road.

To tangent a bit, I exercise by "urban hiking." Which, really, is just going for a 2 - 3 mile power hike through the town. Which route I go depends on how enthusiastic I feel and if I have any grocery shopping to do. It just sounds way cooler called "urban hiking."  (I do the old fashioned climb up and down hills and mountains hiking in the woods when my leg/back is cooperating, but that's less frequent every year.)  In my urban hiking, I often have to cross the road. I either use a crosswalk or a four way stop. One of my most commonly used crosswalk is in front of a school. I typically have to wait for fifteen or twenty cars to go by before someone remembers if there's someone at the crosswalk you're supposed to stop. (Teenagers and seniors seem to be better about this than us middle aged peeps. Guess who walks the most often..)

So, tangenting back to the Canadian Geese, every spring, we have water fowl who need to get their babies across the road. You'd think this would be a hazard. Nope. Everyone knows this happens in the spring, just like in the fall the squirrels are running back and forth the road like maniacs to move nuts about.  So its not unusual to come to a grinding halt at any given time because a couple of geese and their brood want to cross the road. 

Wednesday afternoon is a perfect example. I was driving south along Vedder, heading home, when the car in the left lane; which was a couple car lengths ahead of me, slowed to a stop. I spotted the goose standing on the curb and followed suit. He'd been quietly standing there while his mate tried to keep goslings in order.  Once we stopped he start to honk, LOUDLY, over and over before he started across the road, mate and babies following. They didn't honk, just him. And it wasn't any sort of call, it was just a rhythmic "I'm here" announcement. He stopped at the middle where an oncoming car had halted, seeming to check if the right lane north bound was safe before continuing.  As soon as he got to the curb he hopped up, continuing to honk though he was starting to lose volume. Babies hobbled up with beak bumps from momma goose, and Dad seemed to do a count before turning and ceasing his honkings. The babies and parents made for the wide water space happily and traffic started up again.

We western Canadians have our priorities. Humans can wait, animals are important. :)

Bunny Story : Scout, Sage and the Mouse.

No, I didn't gain two bunnies, this is a story from the past.

Scout, the bunny on the right, was a breeding bunny before she hopped into my life. Her opinion on anything smaller her and furry was its a baby bunny and it must be destroyed. Sage, the bunny on the left, was a big softie and tried to adopt everything fuzzy.. big or small.  Her opinion on a Husky was he was perfectly nice until he licked her.

One day, I found a mouse in the bathroom. A cute little brown field mouse. I think the yelp was more surprise at seeing it than any fear of the rodent. So, off I went to Home Hardware to pick up a humane trap. Alas, when I came home, Scout had found him and there was, uhm, bits of mouse in the house .. up and down the hallway. That was fun to clean up.

I put the trap out just in case the mousie had any friends and went out to plant lupins. (Still one of my favourite flowers even if most of the western world thinks they're weeds.)

When I came back in I found Sage by the litterbox growling at Scout, Scout growling at thumping at Sage, Sage boxing the air at Scout .. and basically it looked like world war three was about to erupt. 

Sage had a pet mouse in the litterbox. The mouse seemed fairly oblivious to it all, it was happily munching of the seed tops in the timothy hay. I grabbed Scout and petted her while I debated what to do. The mouse decided it was full and was off again.. Sage nudged it back in with her nose. Yup. I now have TWO bunnies who think mice are baby rabbits.

"It's NOT a baby rabbit!!!!" I tell them both. Scout is now growling at ME and Sage. I put her in the bathtub and close the sliding door. It was the only place in the house that could hold her for more than two minutes. She could wiggle under doors. She could hop any barrier shorter than five feet. I wouldn't have put it past her to have figured out how to open the shower doors if I'd had to put her in there more than once in a very blue moon.

Going back to the living room, I say to Sage, "You're giving up the mouse." 

Sage eyed me warily. "Whatchoo up to, human?"

I approached. Sage stood her ground, sitting up on her hind legs and boxing the air with her front "You're not getting my kit!" she declared. Fortunately, while they could run faster, I was more nimble than Scout and Sage. I managed to snag Sage and shove her in the carrier without getting bitten.

Now, onto The Mouse.

The mouse is watching me veeeery carefully. "She tooks out da big mouse wif no problem, what chance do I have???" so it dived into the hay. That's fine, I picked up the litterbox, mouse, hay, pine pellets and all, took it out to my defacto compost heap and dumped it. (Okay, I didn't dump the mouse, I sort of shimmied him out.)

Litterbox gets purified and left outside on the deck for the stink to wear off while they get their tertiary litterbox. I let Sage out of the carrier to check all over for injuries, signs of bites, anything. Nada. She puts up with it very well, I put her down and she rushes over to the litterbox to investigate. No mousie. THUMP. She runs off to her hidey and leaves me staring at bunny butt.

Off to the bathroom where there's a very angry looking ND in my bathtub. I pick HER up and give her her second check over of the day. Nope, nothing visable on the squirming, cute, adorable, very irritated mess of fur. I put her down IN the litterbox which she immediately starts sniffing and digging in. Satisfying herself that the interloper is gone, she hops out, thumps at me and disappears under the coffee table.. to present me with bunny butt. She kept looking over her shoulder to make sure I knew how much trouble I was in.

So, back outside I went to find dandelions to pacify my roommates with. When I came back in, I was scum with dandelions.. which meant they were nice enough to eat my dandelions before thumping at me and going back to being mad at me and each other. 

I can only imagine what they'd have thought of pet gerbils..

[Bunny Fiction] Take me out to the hockey game!

Fergie may have passed on, but he deserves one last story, right?

Mr Mick says so!

* * *

The two gerbils perched in front of the rabbits nose, visably vibrating. "Do you think we should wake him up?" asked Fergie.

"Never wake up a sleeping rabbit," Freddie answered, quite seriously. "For they shall be cranky and try to bite off your tail."

"Well, how long should we wait then?" Fergie asked, trying not to bounce up and down in his excitement.

"Dunno -- till he wakes up." Freddie replied, twisting to lick his tail.

"*HE* woke up five minutes ago," the rabbit grumped, rolling onto his stomach from his very comfy flop to glare at the gerbils. "HE was hoping you would GO AWAY and let HIM go back to sleep!" he continued.

The gerbils bounced up and down in spot. "We got you the tickets!" Fergie announced.

"Well, there's no ACTUAL tickets, but.."

Mr Mick ran out of patience with the silly rodents and thumped a foot. "What are you two on about?"

"HOCKEY!" they said in synch.

Mick gave them a long flat look of disapproval.

"You said you wanted to take Speedy to a hockey game!" Freddie exclaimed, "So we found you a hockey game!"

Fergie nodded enthusiastically.

"It wasn't easy, y'know. Half of the best teams are already out of the playoffs. Bruins gone, and they're the closest.. Anyway, since we couldn't find professional, we decided to go amuteur."

Mr Mick wondered if he looked like he cared for all these details or if they two were just afraid if they shut up they'd start thinking or something.

"Anyway - we found some teen three on three." Freddie said. "Its not as BIG as NHL real hockey, but its fast paced and fun."

It took Mr Mick a few minutes to realize they'd stopped talking. He shook his head to get the piping voices out of his ears. "I wanted to find hockey?" He finally asked.

"Sure, you said so in your blog!" Fergie said. He looked to Freddie. "Didn't he?"

"He did!" The little grey gerbil thumped a little hind foot. "You did!" he repeated to Mick.

The rabbit sighed, "I guess I did. When is this hockey game?" he asked, hoping it wouldn't be in the middle of dinner or nap time. A rabbit had to have his priorities.

* * *

"Why don't we invite some other buns too?" Speedy asked over Skype. It wasn't that he didn't like Mr Mick, it was just if he was going to sneak out, they might as well make a party of it.

"Ooooh.." Mr Mick said, "Okay!" He promptly fired off a message to the Bun Underground mailing list making it an open invite. He heard The Boy walking his way, "Gotta go, the idiot ape is coming this way. Probably something about a phone charger.." Mr Mick flicked off the tablet and tucked it under his litterbox before flomping on the floor.

Might as well catch up on some sleep while ignoring The Boy.

* * *

Mr Mick appeared in the arena's closet, bearing ducking a hockey stick that had been kicked over by an accidental prone Harrington. Hannah tisked at him. "Watch where you put those helicopter ears of yours!"

Harrington sighed, "I was making room for Weasley," he explained.

"Weasley can't see," Weasley added to Harrington's defense.

"I know, Weasley dear," Hannah said with a lick to his nose, "But somebuns still need to watch where THEY'RE going, he almost KO'd our host."

Mr Mick shook his head at the small crowd, ears flapping. "I'm not sure I'm the host.."

"Better you than a couple of gerbils!" Weasley said with a stomped foot.

"I kind of like the gerbils.." Speedy said quietly, studying his claws.

"Oh we all like the gerbils, Speedy, its the principal of the matter." Hannah explained and gave her mate a head shove. "Now, who is explaining this hockey stuff?"

"That would be MOI." A voice said appearing out of the shadows of transport. The first rule of divaness was to always make an entrance! She stopped in the beam of light coming through the crack of the door, blue scarf jauntily flipped over one shoulder.

"Who is Moi?" Weasley asked, sniffing the air, not recognizing the scent.

"ME!" The little rabbit said with a foot thump and ear flick, "MADDY." She added with disdain that someone didn't know who she was.

The small group of rabbits all exchanged looks. Hannah shrugged a shoulder. Speedy looked bewildered, Harrington suppressed a yawn, Mr Mick cleared his throat, "Er, right, well, welcome Maddy."

She siddled up to Speedy, "Mr British Handsome invited me."

His ears twitched around in surprise, "Er, actually.. Mick invited everyone.. and it was kind of an open invite and uhm.."

Hannah rolled her eyes and gave the much smaller girl a light shove, "C'mon, Speedy's shy, don't torment the poor boy."

Speedy felt he should probably protest but instead retreated to Weasley, offering to be his guide for the night.

"Better than gerbils who forget where a rabbit's head is," Weasley grumbled after thanking his overseas friend.

Maddy shrugged off the criticism, she knew she was awesome, hardly her fault if these silly rural rabbits didn't realize it too. "Okay - well, hockey." She said, making sure the light shone from behind, highlighting her fur and perfect ears.

"Are you Canadian?" Harrington butted in.

"No!" Maddy replied, indignant. Canadian? Really!

"Then how do you know about hockey?" Mr Mick asked, suspicious. He knew girls liked to just make stuff up.

She rolled her eyes, "Hello! Just because I live in California, doesn't mean I can't appreciate hockey! The USA just beat Canada at the world's you know!"

A gaggle of rabbits all nodded and murmered that of course they knew that and USA was number one. Speedy thought Britain could win gold if they had a team.

"ANYWAY!" She continued, giving the group a scathing glance that said don't interupt me again or face my wrath, "Hockey." She sat up on her back paws. "Hockey is an ancient and important sport.."

"Not to be rude, but skip the details or we'll miss the game." Mick interjected.

Maddy ground her teeth and counted cracks in the floor. "Fine. Its a bunch of hairless monkeys on thin sticks of metal on their feet, sliding around on ice after a little black piece of rubber that tastes horrible. They try and get the puck, the black rubber thing, in the goal. They stop that by hitting each other with themselves and sticks. Its fast paced and fun."

They all agreed that did sound fun.

"What's the snack of choice?" Speedy asked.

"What?" Maddy echoed.

"Movies you eat popcorn, baseball its hotdogs.." Mick offered,

"Oh, and football you drink beer!" Weasley threw in.

"Yeah, and soccer you eat grass!" Speedy said.

"Beer, pretzels and pizza." Maddy replied. Apes would celebrate anything with that, she felt it was pretty safe to say.

They all agreed that pizza was pretty much awesome, though there was some dissent on whether pizza was better or worse than beer and where it all ranked in comparison to dried banana chips and oat hay.

"C'mon, we better find our seats." Hannah ordered, hopping towards the door.

"Who put you in charge?" Maddy muttered, not wanting to follow the bigger rabbit's butt.

"Me, that's who." Hannah said, looking down her nose at the Lionhead. Easy going and friendly she may be, but there was only so much snottitude she'd put up with.

"Er, right." Maddy agreed, deciding now was a pretty good time to groom her perfect fluffy tail.

The rabbits trailed out of the closet, following Hannah after she called the all clear. Maddy sighed and followed. At least all the cobbywebs would be cleared out by the bigger, clumsier, lagomorphs.

* * *

Speedy had given up and just told Weasley to hold his tail. He'd been a bit nervous about this, he really didn't want his tail bitten. Human's thought tail tweaking was fun, but they were just wrong.. and having his tail bitten would be even worse. Fortunately, Weasley had a very gentle mouth and was more than able to keep up with Speedy as they navigated their way up to the rafters.  The fun bit had been getting onto the girders.

They all agreed they were marvelous seats, even if Harrington commented that it would be a bit of a trip to go get snacks. "We can send the girls." Mr Mick said.

Maddy snapped her teeth at him, Hannah threatened to shove him off the beam.

"Or, er, I could go?" Mr Mick corrected.

Harrington's smartphone buzzed and he dug it out of the bunny carry all portal. "Its Cookies and Twinkle, they wanna know where we are, they can't see anything but stinky human feet."

Speedy hopped over Weasley, "I'll go get them!" he offered.

"Oh, bring back some snacks!" Weasley didn't really ask, offering Speedy the loan of a bunny portal.

Speedy sniffed at the magical device with interest. He thought about how many scarfs he could have if he had a portal of his own. He'd have to find out where the older buns got their's!

Time to get some food, help some new friends, and then he'd get to watch this hockey thing! He just couldn't wait!

* * *

To be continued .. by whomever gets to it first. ;)

* * *

Mr Mick is from - Zen of Bun (And his latest round of tummy issues have nothing to do with garbage eating at sports games, I swear, Jade!)
Speedy is from - Speedy the Cheeky House Bunny (Sure, he's hiding under the bushes and playing hide and go seek, not watching hockey games.. honest!)
Hannah and Harrington are from - The Raspberry Rabbit (Researching things to stitch at sports games, no doubt.)
Weasley is from Rabbits Eat Quilts (And innocent of all wrong doing by virtue of being rabbit.)
Maddy the Diva is from - Me and Me(gan) (And nowhere near as snotty as I portray her, I'm sure. :) )
Cameo'd Cookies and Twinkle are from - Binkies and Flops (Abbreviated and inaccurate names are all my fault. I'll send them craisins of apology!)

Fergie, a gerbil of a thousand names.

Alas, my little Fergie left me yesterday. He was doing poorly in the morning and I figured he wasn't long for this world. I finger fed him some water until he had enough and peeled some sunflower seeds for him, but he didn't hold a lot of interest, so I pet him a little and left him to his brother's nursing.

Freddie was actually pretty sweet. When Fergie would sit sideways on their wheel, Freddie would rock it back and forth. Fergie's favourite thing in the world was to sit on that wheel and wiggle his butt back and forth to rock side to side. After a while he got up and retreated to his hidey with his brother for a nap. I had other commitments and after stashing a few more sunflower seeds, went down to visit my friend Chris.

Unfortunately, gerbils only live nine to twelve months. Like many rodents, they live fast, die young, and try to leave as many heirs as possible. He was young for a gerbil to be passing of old age, but who knows. Freddie seems a bit out of sorts today, but seems more confused than upset.

As with any animal that enters my life for any length of time, Fergie gain a lot of names. Some of them even polite. (Actually, I think only Freddie's been called profanity.. and that's because he's an escape artist.) A few include..

- Fergus McFluff, Laird of the Sunflowers.
- Fergie Wergie Puddington Pie
- The Ferginator
- Sack of Hammers. (As in, dumber than.)
- Mr Mischief
- The Blonde
- Fergilus The Mighty
- Fergie, tempter of cats.
- Sucidial little twit. (See above.)
- Pocket fuzz
- Destroyer of Sunflowers, maimer of corn, laird of the laundry. (It doesn't have to make sense, dangit)
- Sunny Sunshine.

I didn't expect much of a couple of gerbils when I took them into my home. I just wanted some sort of life in here. Quite a lot of personality in their little furry bodies.. and they were as happy to train me and educate me as the rabbits and animals that came before them. Generous little souls.

I'm not sure if I'll get Freddie a friend or not. You have to bond gerbils like you do rabbits. Perhaps I'll see if SARS has any lone male gerbils. Freddie can't keep up all the cat taunting on his own, after all..

Fizzy's Store - an eBook.

I was asked to post the link to my ebook. So, its below. I edited the description to remove the donations going to the UVIC bunny fund. If I make any further sales, I'll probably just donate them to the SPCA or something.