Penelope's Origin Story

When I was a kid I loved animals...

Now days, I am constantly struggling against my urge to be on a farm with my love of the city. 

Not only do i want all the animals and grow all my food, i want to make all my clothes and do all the crafts. obviously this isn't possible. One of the millions of crafts i do to minimal ability and doneness is spinning yarn.

 one day i had a rush of ideas that went something like this : i barely spin wool so i NEED an animal that makes wool. i could have an urban farm and treat the with animals love and we could take the wool and spun wool and things i've crochet and sell them at the farmers market. We could have chickens and grow our own food.  We'll just convert one of those empty lots. 

Of course none of these ideas are practical.
but not being a practicable person i had to look up all the cute wool animal pictures. That 's when i came across angora rabbits. 

Which led me down a whole other set of illogical bad ideas, like turning my basement into a rabbit farm. eventually i found out about house rabbits. Things i had assumed about rabbits were wrong. lots of things. (check out binkybunny.com for rabbit info) Even after i had worked with rabbits in a children's museum. One thing leads to another and i end up on petfinder.com. where i saw a photo of a tiny long haired rabbit named 'snow white'

I went through maybe a week or two convincing myself i could not have a bunny. We have four cats. and a fish. I'm busy.... we'll not as busy as i should be. It's a huge responsibility.

One day I realized, because we have four cats, we can't travel without getting a sitter anyways. I researched that rabbits and cats actually do get along pretty well.

 And then i realized i was an adult, we have the space and funds and i could have a rabbit if i wanted one.

 

I think i was feeling particularly confident that day. 

 So i filled out the application and was pre-approved for adopting 'snow white'. The whole time getting ready for her and doing more research i kept having doubt and telling myself  'it's not responsible'. 

Lucky for me Nick was cool with me adding to our fur babies. He helped me feel more confident about the decision to rescue her. 

When i say 'rescue' i mean 'rescue'. well, sort of. the real person who rescued her was an animal control officer who didn't want her to be 'put down'. 

We now call her Penelope but before she was even 'Snow white'  she was '240'. I know this because there is a prison style tattoo in her ear.

 She was owned by a breeder who instructed her boyfriend to drop 240 and it's kit off at the Gloucester County animal shelter to be euthanized. This is because she had a cold. Often breeders cram too many animals together and if one gets sick it can easily transfer threw the whole herd. Her baby was weened and was adopted out before i met her.

 

Penelope working before she retired as a breeding rabbit. Female rabbits drop their eggs after they have been fertilized. They can get pregnant the same day they give birth. There is no way to know how many litters she had or how old she is.  Penelope is now spayed.

I can't believe the amount of emotions I've had around my bunny. i suppose it has something to do with not having children of my own. my fur babies have been dogs and cats and i have never felt so protective as i do with Penelope.  She is getting along with the cats... either they are frightened of her, have a mild curiosity of her, or lick her like she's a kitten.  I just love to sit and watch her hop around and nibble her food.

 Penelope. About a week after we got her.