First Week: Bunnies

       The normal commute from where I'm staying to the sanctuary is about 15 minutes. There is only one road to the sanctuary, and that's Highway 89. But unfortunately, they've been doing a lot of construction on 89 for the last few months, narrowing the road down to only one lane. They use something called a "pilot car", which takes cars back and forth along this 3-mile stretch of highway. While the one direction of cars is going through, you have to sit there and wait your turn to go through. This can take up to 25 minutes to get through this stretch of the highway. Since I started work at 8:00AM this morning, I left at about 7:15AM to ensure that I would get to the sanctuary on time. Luckily (or unluckily) enough for me, I missed the pilot car! So I got to work about half an hour early. Once I got into the sanctuary, I decided to go take a picture of the Grand Staircase Escalante from the upper canyon. (I blew it up pretty big, but it still doesn't do the picture justice!)

       Once 8:00 came around, I made my way over to...

     Not having much experience with bunnies, I didn't really know what to expect. I walked in and met the staff: Michele, Bryan, and Jason... Who are all SUPER nice! Now that my first day is over, I can tell you that I'm in love with bunnies!!! Shocker, right? I spent the majority of my day cleaning and sweeping kennels, doing laundry, and feeding. Not too grueling. Right now, the sanctuary has about 85 bunnies! I had the pleasure of watching the staff attempt to "bond" two bunnies. For those of you who aren't too familiar with bunnies, they prefer to have a companion or a 'forever friend', so they try to bond or introduce them to one another within a gated area. This bonding process can take up to 3 weeks. Today, they were trying to bond Cadbury (the brown one) and Bugzie (the white one). They got along very well and showed no signs of aggression towards one another. They are too cute!

       While cleaning one of the kennels, I made a new friend. Her name is Harley. I spent some time in Harley's kennel just hanging out with her. She was one of the only bunnies that didn't run away from me and actually allowed me to pet her. Michele suggested that I give Harley a "veggie bowl", which is one of her favorite treats!

       Doesn't get more adorable than that! She is such a love. I'm already trying to figure out how I can get her back to Pennsylvania :). Later in the afternoon, when all of the bunnies are fed their afternoon snack of fresh greens, I decided to go back to Harley's kennel and hand-feed her. I think she appreciated the help!

       Overall, it was a really good first day! And I can tell that it's going to be a great week and I'm going to enjoy my time spent at the Bunny House! Sadly, I got stuck waiting for the pilot car on my way home, so my commute took me about 30 minutes instead of 15! Oh well, it's not so bad when this is your view :).....