Bunny Burrito

Six English Angora bunnies, one Angora sweater sleeve, add little poops and pees to taste. A wonderful bunny burrito is made.

Allen Guest Blogs - Memory of Gambia, Africa

To enter The Gambia, we drove through south central Senegal, with a ferry ride over the massive Gambia River into the country's capital, Banjul. People, grain, and even donkeys make the journey of export/import from Senegal to The Gambia!



After giving a 20 minute presentation to the Rotary Club of Fajara, Gambian Rotarian Omou Tall took me to a delicious dinner of Barracuda. Omou is rather famous in The Gambia, having personally pioneered and raised money to vaccinate over 250,000 Gambia children from Polio. Her story was highlighted in the internationally published Rotary magazine this past December. It was a true honor to sit hear her story over dinner. She is an amazing woman.

Most might think rabbits or goats are my favorite animal; but my true passion was fulfilled with feeding peanuts to Green Monkeys at the Ambuko National Reserve in Banjul, The Gambia. Now I understand the thrill of kids in petting zoos!

Since returning to the US, my mind is endlessly filled with memories of my study in West Africa.

During my last week, I took a journey with my host Senegalese family to the smallest country in Africa, The Gambia. The Gambia is almost completely surrounded by Senegal, except for a small coast on the Atlantic.

The Gambia was an English colony, a contrast to the French colonized Senegal. Though the two countries have been independent for several decades, they have had their share of struggles in development. In fact, in the 1980's, Senegal and The Gambia formed as one country, called "Senegambia". The union failed in 1989, and today the countries remain separate. Being an English colony, English is the business and official language, with Wolof again being the native tongue. It was strange only traveling five hours by car to a land where my own language was spoken! Actually, it was quite comforting.

While I was in The Gambia, I gave a presentation to the Rotary Club of Fajara on my idea to introduce rabbit farming as a means of feeding people in developing West Africa. Too, I snuck in some last-minute gift shopping, sampling of Gambian foods, like Barracuda, and of course, beaching!

Emilia's Babies All Grown Up

Emilia, thirteen-time all breed Best In Show and five-time all breed Reserve In Show winner, has six daughters and a son in her litter. Four of her daughters and the son are carbon copies of her, all the little Emilias.

At eight months old, Emilia's son Elio has won an all breed Reserve In Show in Santa Rosa a little over a week ago; her daughters are starting to gain grounds in shows. Here are the three sisters, from left to right are: Ember, Emmy and Emelyn. Another carbon copy of Emilia is "Too Sexy" who now resides with Maureen in Ohio.

Bunnies And Bunnies

We have not had bunny pictures for a while. Betty shares some of her bunny pictures here. These are a litter of six that living inside a very large carrier in her family room. The bunnies like to all squeeze into their "bed", a shelf unit from a refrigerator.

Pat Shares Her Art Work

Pat with the Best Of Breed Giant Angora at Portland Convention.











A painting of an English Angora on a T-shirt. Betty bought this T-shirt from Pat some 20 years ago.









A 16" x 20" oil painting titled: " Photo Finish" This one was a winner in two art shows









A small 8" x 10" oil painting on unprimed canvas. Titled "Daydreaming", it is an Andalusian stallion portrait. This is "Ravel", belonging to JDon Andalusian Farms.

Pat is the secretary of CARS, California Angora Rabbit Society. CARS is the equivalent of NCAG in So. CA.; it has been in existence for over 20 years. Pat has been the secretary of CARS about as long as Betty being the secretary of NCAG.

Pat has beautiful French Angora and Giant Angora. The top is a photo of Pat with her Best of Breed Giant Angora in the ARBA national convention. Pat is also in the movie business. The most important aspect of her talent and training is in art. Her specialty is animals especially horses, here are photos of two of her oil paintings of a horse. For more of her artwork, go to http://dugganartwork.com/

Betty bought a T-shirt from Pat some 20 years ago. It has the cutest English Angora in the front. Betty has only worn it a few times for fear of damaging such a pretty artwork. The picture of this T-shirt is also shown here.

There is a good chance that Pat will be going to ARBA convention in Louisville this year; for sure she will be in the 2009 ARBA convention in San Diego.

Big Winners at Chico

Keelyn won Best In Show with her Mini Rex in open show A.











Jennie won Reserve In Show with her Satin in open show A. Judge Ray picked the two top winners in open show A.









John won Best In Show with his French Lop in open show B.










Kasey won Best In Show in youth show A and Reserve In Show in open show B with her Polish.







Sammy won Reserve In Show with his Netherland Dwarf in youth show A. Judge Manuel picked the Polish and the Netherland Dwarf as the two top winners in youth how A.

Two "First" In The Oregon Show

Allen judging his first open and first out of state show. This is with the Oregon Fuzzy ladies- Muriel, Ann and Diane.

Here is the show registrar- Joe's first time out.

Joe says, "I have to tattoo these things, now I have to go buy ink!" "How do you get this ink of my fingers?"

Randy and Allen judged in Oregon on Saturday. They had a great time. This is the first time that Allen judged an open show and the first time that he judges out of state. He travels a lot, we all know that.

The Oregon show also claims the first of having Joe as the show registrar. If you don't know Joe, he's the one who won Best In Show with a Tan in the 2003 convention, also rumored to be Betty's son. Joe had fun and being poked fun by others. He came unprepared; had to borrow registration blanks, a copy of the Standard of Perfection, a scale, a tattoo tool, a bottle of ink, and a ruler. He got the job done well, prepared or unprepared.

Thanks to Randy for sending these pictures and the report directly from the show room.