Casey's Visit

Casey is going to the Monterey Fair tomorrow. She combines it into a mini vacation with her son Cole and his girl friend Ashley. They are going to the Monterey Aquarian and do some sightseeing. They stopped by at Betty's place to drop off the rabbits and to have a quick tour of Betty's newly remodeled barn. They are very impressed with Albert's workmanship.

From left to right is Cole, Ashley and Casey.

Country Woman Magazine

In the March/April issue of Country Woman magazine, a Mini Rex rabbitry in MN was featured. Here are the three pages in the magazine.

In yesterday's post, there were two young judges registering rabbits in this rabbitry when the reporter came to take pictures. They are in the left of the lower picture on the first page; and in the lower picture on the second page.

It's nice to see young judges coming into the show circuit, it indicates that the ARBA shows have a bright future.

Rabbit Show in a Mall

When we think about a rabbit show, we think about fairgrounds. Once a while,

we'd have a show in a park, in a backyard, in a barn, ... Very seldom we heard about a rabbit show being held in a shopping mall.

In Alberta, Canada a couple of weeks ago, the shopping mall sponsored the four rabbit shows. Here we see five photos taken during the show in the shopping mall. The exhibitors are looking on while the shoppers passing by. The signs of the stores are visible.

In the first photo, English Angora are lined up in the judging coop; the second photo shows the candidates for the Best In Show. As we learned a week ago that Holly's two English Angora does won the Best In Show in all four shows.

The third photo shows Judge Anna from MN examining a white English Angora;  
the fourth photo shows judge Jacob placing white English Angora in the class.

Friendship

So. CA friend Lonita sends in these cute pictures of the friendship between "Bambi" and "Thumper". These pictures are so cute and so warm that our readers will certainly enjoy.

Betty's Barn Reconstruction - Done

Betty's barn is finally done. The door to the feed storage is installed, two roll up blinds are added in the front and two are added in the other end of the barn. Drapes are hung on the side next to the fence on the left of the photo.

It took three days of work to move the 40+ rabbits into the newly reconstructed barn. Albert and Betty took apart the cages to change the bottom wires, then each cage was blow-torched and power-washed.

It feels so good to have a barn with totally cleaned cages. Just hope that the spiders won't work overtime to do the Halloween decoration too quickly.

The entire process took more than two months. During this period, California experienced a heat wave that lasted over two weeks. The temperature went to as high as 114 degrees. Rabbits went through a very stressful period of time. Albert and Betty were also stressed to the limit, both had sustained a few injuries from accidents.

Is it worth it? If asked this question a week ago, the answer probably would be a no due to the extreme difficulty. Now that it's done, everything is nice and pristine, it's certainly worth all the effort and work.

The series about Betty's barn reconstruction is done. It is hoped that our readers are not too bored with four days of posting with the same topic.

Betty's Barn Reconstruction - Part III

It's almost there. The first photo shows the front of the barn, still needs a door to the feed storage room.

The second photo is the side view.

The third photo shows the inside of the barn. Where the white bucket situated is where the tree used to be. The table is used for tools, it would be removed after the work is done. There will be cages behind the feed storage as well as the area where the table and bucket are in the picture.

Betty's Barn Reconstruction - Part II

Continued from yesterday's post, side panels were installed on Betty's barn in picture number one.

The second picture shows the roof shingles in the package to be installed.

Albert installs the shingles in photo number three.

The swamp cooler weighs over 100 pounds. It's not an easy job to get it to the top of the barn just under the roof. Albert built a platform for the swamp cooler, and then made a pulley by using the main beam of the barn and the tree next to the barn. Betty pulled and Albert pushed, the swamp was put on its platform. The fourth picture shows the ropes, the pulley and the swamp cooler.

The fifth picture show the swap cooler resting securely on the platform. And yes, that's a rabbit stained glass being installed to the left of the swamp cooler. Story about the stained glass will come later.