Behold the Rabbit Penitentiary!

So the Rabbit has a new home.

IMG_3375The hutch features no 90° angles and very few straight lines.  I expect that this will protect the occupant from hounds of tindalos tunnelling in through the corners and is an object lesson of the false economy of purchasing a jigsaw.

IMG_3391Initial reactions were positive.  Note the plumbing to the right of “Starler the Rabbit.”

IMG_3379From this shot you can see that the floor is elevated.  The idea being that the beast doesn’t have to sleep on the cold ground, and the little scamp can wriggle under there when she’s feeling adventurous.  I expect to be combatting some The Great Escape actions from this quarter in the future.

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Here we see the rear wall hinged down.  You can see the egress to the main chamber, and you can also see the upper floor, with its own portal.  For this initial effort I decided not to install a fireman’s pole, feeling that the scramble to the upper level will put Oryctolagus cuniculus in a proprietorial frame of mind.  This mezzanine is designed to be a snug and private space for the occupant and features an old t-shirt for comfort and amusement.

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Due to the solid-wood construction and massive over-engineering the hutch is immovable by children and a struggle for an adult, hence the handles you may have noticed in fig. 1.  This is semi-intentional as it presents a challenge to passing cats, dogs and pythons.  Depending on future tests by both occupant and visitors, we may install tent pegs at a later date.

IMG_3387As a final shot, here’s the enclosure sealed up.  The latching mechanism is a simple eyelet and hook apparatus.  The intention here is that if something big does start rattling her cage, the door should pop open and give Miss Rabbit a fighting chance at fleeing, assuming that she has already retreated to the mezzanine or main chamber.  We are, of course, yet to test this theory.  Stay tuned for updates.

The Great Flood of 2012

My house flooded last Thursday night.  We’ve had a little water come in once before which pooled in the laundry and kitchen and that’s how it started on Thursday.  I did the normal thing, which was to stuff towels under the back and side doors and across the kitchen doorway.  Two hours later I came downstairs and there was enough water in the hallway to cover my feet.

Flooded Kitchen
What’s wrong with this picture? The blue towel was across the doorway to stop water running in the red mat should be in front of the bathroom door and the fridge power lead should be on top of the red ice bucket.

Things weren’t much better in the hallway:

I took these photos after unplugging everything that was underwater, fishing out the vacuum cleaner and leaving it to drain and sorting out anything else that was going to get wrecked by immersion.

Being radical and unconventional, our bathroom doesn’t have a drainage plug in the floor, it’s got a hole in the wall at floor level.  This has the benefits of poorly draining water from your shower, making the bathroom a bugger to keep clean, but also means that when it floods the water has an easy entry to the house.  Guess what I forgot to plug.

I can tell you that it’s pretty weird having a shower ankle deep in floodwater.

The living room, the highest and most expensive part of the house was also innundated.  You can’t really see it from this photo, but the water’s up around the castors of that office chair.  You may notice the eerie mirrored surface of the floor.

Astute observers will notice the odd perspective presented by the fan. It’s actually on the chair to keep it out of the water.

Now let’s have a look outside.  My yard  has been flooded pretty much continuously since it’s started seriously raining.  It’s been kind of weird washing paint brushes with the hose ankle deep in muddy water.

That can’t be good for the grass.
Someone leave the hose running?
The watering can is bitterly ironic, given the circumstances.
Duncan will be disappointed.
No chilling in the little deckchair tonight, unless I put my feet up too.
The water level has dropped by about half now, it was over the step at its height.



So in the end not much damage was done, although there’s been a lot of cleanup of floating garbage and the like.  I’ve got some sandbags so we’ll see how things fare next time.