All posts filed under: Bunnies

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 4

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Week 4 Even with his blindness, Tofu still spends 12 hours a day outside in the garden. He is eager to go outside in the mornings and runs to the back door to be let out. He sometimes comes inside on his own in the evenings, and equally, sometimes needs to be fetched. Tofu is jumping up onto our bed and couch and continues to move around the house like he owns the place. He still doesn’t sleep on our bed like he used to, but that’s no biggie. He prefers to sleep on the floor next to our bed. One time he went to jump onto the couch, but underestimated the height and fully bailed. I swear he looked embarrassed. Failing to reach the couch could happen due to his blindness or could just be something that happens. We once had a bunny named Sharmi and a couple of times, she bailed when jumping up onto things. One time Sharmi was walking along the top of the couch and fell off the back. She was …

Monday Bunday: Lady Aiko

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Tokyo-born, NYC living artist Aiko Nakagawa goes by the name Lady Aiko has a background in graphic design and filmmaking. Her bunny welding a can design has taken on a life of it’s own. I’m loving the Hot Pink Bunny Cans that feature a stencil of the bunny holding a can. Lady Aiko has painted this rabbit on canvases and also out there in the real world (in the streets). Vinyl toy giants Kidrobot have made her bunny into a collectable toy and you can pick it up online for about $40US. You can view Lady Aiko’s work at her website http://www.ladyaiko.com

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 3

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Week 3 Tofu is starting to jump up onto the couch and up to our bed on his own. Either he is getting very confident with his blindness or he has learned how to use what little sight he has. He runs to the back door most mornings now, eager to be let outside. Our feijoa tree is in full fruit so it’s possible he’s been dreaming of feijoas all night and is eager to see if any more fruit has dropped. It’s really hard for me to find feijoas in our backyard as our grass is long and the feijoa are green. But Tofu manages to find them fine as they smell wonderfully perfumy and sweet. Tofu has come back inside on his own a few times in the evenings, but usually he needs to be fetched. When we bring him inside, it takes him a little while to figure out where in the house he has been put down. But once that has been figured out, he’s pretty much good to go. Check out …

Monday Bunday: Luke Chueh

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Illustrator Luke Chueh doesn’t just draw bunnies. But he certainly has a morbid fascination with them. Luke’s characters have a cuteness about them but also a sinister element. There is a sadness. Luke lives in and works in LA and his background is in graphic design. You can view more of his work (including non-bunnies) over at his website www.lukechueh.com      

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 2

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Week 2 Before blindness, when Tofu was offered a grape or a piece of carrot, he took it firmly between his bunny teeth and ran away with it to somewhere he deemed “safe”. His instinct tells him the treat is too much of a good thing and he doesn’t trust us enough to eat his treat near us. Now that he cannot see, this impulse is a bit messed up. He recognises the treat, lunges for it, misses, takes off, realises he hasn’t got the treat, frantically returns for the treat, while still ready to flee. If he could just calm down and look for the carrot methodically, he’d find it. It’s a concerning how hysterical he gets over a piece of carrot. When there is just the three of us home, it is familiar. The sounds of the the house are regular and objects are where they should be, Tofu gets around fine. When there are lots of people in the house, random feet and bags in unusual places, Tofu gets disorientated. He can’t …

Monday Bunday: Duck-Rabbit Problem

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This fluffy sculpture by Kathy Temin is a cuddly play on a well known duck-rabbit optical illusion. The sculpture looks so sweet and cuddly I want to put on my pyjamas, slippers and watch telly with it. Viewed from the yellow side, it is supposed to resemble a duck. Viewed from the pink side, a rabbit. Though why it’s head is severed and presented on a watermelon plate is beyond me.

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary. Week 1

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Week 1 First week of blindness in both eyes, we all had to adapt. I admit, the first few times I saw him run into things, it was a funny sight but now it breaks my heart. However, blindness doesn’t stop Tofu from running at full speed. What a brave wee soul. A common collision is when he’s running at full speed down our hallway and we have a clothes horse set up. Even with perfect vision, a bunny would have trouble seeing the skinny legs of a clothes horse and the problem is that the clothes horse is not always up. It’s not in his memory so he forgets to put it in his mind’s eye. If we can find a new place to put the clothes horse, we could eliminate this problem. Tofu’s “raisins” can be found littered around outside his hutch. We keep his litter tray inside his hutch and most time he goes to the toilet in there. It’s hard to say if it’s blindness or if he is marking out …

Tofu Tuesday: Blindness diary – Intro

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“Love was kind, for a time Now just aches, and it makes me blind This mirrors haunts, by eyes too bright That I can’t see the others in my life” – MUMFORD & SONS, Lover’s Eyes In January this year, we noticed a cloudy white cataract appear in one of Tofu’s eyes and few months later, another cataract formed in his other eye. We took him to the vet were given eye drops. Eye drops neither cured it or harmed it, but helped the weepiness some. Now that Tofu is blind in not one, but both eyes, things are a little different in his world. The cause Cataracts (also known in bunnies as moon eyes) cause vision to become cloudy and can result in blindness. Since the size of Tofu’s cataracts fluctuate, his eyes are still searching for light which means he may see light, but the picture is severely impaired. Cataracts can appear with age and Tofu is 4 years old. While rabbits can live over 10 years, it’s hard to say how old the average …

Tofu Tuesday: How to give bunny a bath (and a recipe for a bunny burrito)

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Rabbits spend much of the day grooming themselves, but as they get older or rounder or sick, they may have trouble keeping their bottoms clean. When Tofu’s bum gets messy, he gets a bath. We usually bathe Tofu in the bathroom sink and it’s a two person job. But recently I bathed Tofu in the bath and found that it can easily be a one person job. Important: Get everything ready before you start. Never leave a rabbit unattended in water. Here are detailed instructions on how I bathe Tofu. Every bunny is different. Tofu doesn’t panic around water, he panics if he feels unsecure. Your rabbit might be different. The different smells, sights and water might be too much for him or her. Use this as a guide and use your best judgement. We have tried blowdrying Tofu, but he is very fluffy for a rabbit. It takes a really, really long time. If your rabbit is less fluffy, you could try blowdrying, but I find that the bunny burrito method works quite well …

Monday Bunday: Nini Sum

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Nini Sum of Idle Beats (one of the few screenprint/poster studios in China) released this lovely screenprint “Rabbit Year In Shanghai” last year. A tiny edition of 56, it has sold out of course. Probably many times over. You can view Nini’s other poster designs at http://www.idlebeats.com. I also had an inkling to look up Nini’s own website. I’m sure glad I did because I found a few further bunny related gems. Check out her site www.ninisum.com. It’s super cool and surrealist.

Tofu Tuesday: Grass bunny

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A couple of weeks ago, this grass bunny made a journey from Australia to New Zealand, courtesy of Cass from the food blog Food My Friend. Cass is the proud owner of a lop called Flatpac. You can see Flatpac Fridays here in case you need a bunny booster if Tofu Tuesdays isn’t quite enough 🙂 Everyone at home loves the grass bunny. Including Tofu. Thanks Cass! Check out previous Tofu Tuesday posts here.

Monday Bunday: Jose Ortiz

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This illustration by Jose Ortiz for client Linguagraphics makes me smile. Black cats and white rabbits are both recognized for their magical properties. The black cat as a witch’s familiar and the white rabbit as the magicians sidekick. Jose’s slick portofolio has a clean, cool finish and bears the hand of a perfectionist. His work can be found on his website www.jofolio.com.

Make a feijoa preserve

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The first fruit to drop from our feijoa tree went unnoticed by us, but Tofu the bunny sniffed it out and ate half of it before I caught him. Considering Tofu is blind, that is top marks to the  bunny. Tofu loves feijoa and we have to check the backyard daily to clean up all the fallen feijoa or else he will eat more than is good for him. For those outside the loop, feijoa (Pronounced fee-JO-ah) are a guava with a perfumey, tart flavour and a grainy texture similar to pear. The originated in South America and I’m not how they found their way to Auckland, New Zealand, but the feijoa season here is short, intense and adored by many. We count our lucky stars that our rental has a thriving feijoa tree in the backyard. I have fond memories of feijoa season, we would sit around the table, eating feijoa and stacking up the emptied cups as we ate until the towers bent and swayed. In Cantonese, we call them “FEE-jo. To eat a feijoa, …

Tofu Tuesday: Japanese Art Festival Edition

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For the past 3 years, The Koala and I have been heavily involved with the Japanese Art Festival. Neither of us are Japanese, but we have a fondness of Japanese art, culture and food. It all began when a friend who was helping with the organisation for 2010’s festival asked if we wanted to submit some artwork. Since then, we’ve not only submitted work, but also branded, advertised, promoted and helped to organise different aspects of the event. The festival was well advertised this year with flyers and posters distributed all across Auckland, magazine advertising, radio advertising, and of course the mother of all advertising for free events: Facebook. It’s a fairly big task logistically and it all paid off seeing all the people that came to the festival to enjoy the art and various events over the 3 days. It’s been a great learning curve for us and it’s great to have a hand in something like this. The festival is now in its fourth year and is held at the Aotea Centre in the heart …

Tofu Tuesday: Easter Bunny

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Like most bunnies, Tofu has a sweet tooth and adores raisins and bread. Neither are good for rabbits but can be viewed as occasional treats. Tofu goes crazy for hot cross buns and a single bun can transform this usually mild-mannered lagomorph into a common thief. One Easter, I left a plastic-wrapped hot cross bun in my handbag which was on a chair near our front door. The next morning, half the bun was found under our bed in our bedroom. Tofu had sniffed out the bun, foraged for it in my bag and carried his trophy to the bedroom to enjoy. We now know to keep treats like these firmly out of reach. For those that are considering adopting a rabbit just for Easter, please don’t. Rabbits are not a holiday decoration. Animal shelters become inundated with unwanted rabbits shortly after Easter as kids and families move on. Parents with seemingly innocent intentions purchase a rabbit for Easter, only to get rid of it when the season is over. This is irresponsible and teaches …