New Baby Bunny & Still Fixing and Upping

plus a Viking 6030 sewing machine and a new mu'u

Jessie & Caesar have a new baby! Yay!

Most times litters don't show up in the summer time since it seems too hot for them. Well, it's not really "them", it's frequently the buck becomes temporarily sterile when the temperatures go very far over eighty. The litter was exceptionally small, there's only one but it's a really fat one.

If this is a female, her name will be 'Lilly' or maybe 'Calla Lilly'? Some sort of white flower. Even though she looks pink now, she will be a ruby eyed white when she's older. This picture was taken when she was less than a day old.

Just a little bit more white and less pink about a day later. Pink baby bunnies will usually end up white when they get fur. Depending on genetics, they can have red or blue eyes. The ones around here will always have ruby red eyes since the genetics to make a blue eyed white rabbit also causes a whole bunch of mis-marked (if you're an English angora) bunnies. I kinda like the ruby red eyes, blue eyed ones look spooky, but maybe you aren't fond of red eyed rabbits?

If that baby bunny ate any more, she'd pop! That is the roundest baby bunny I've ever seen. Since she's a litter of one, she's getting the food that could feed a dozen, so I suppose she has a good reason to be that plump.

After a few days, the hair grows and the pink baby angora bunny becomes a white baby angora bunny. She still seems to like to lay upside down a lot, though. Most times they are more upright, this one just seems to like to wave her feet in the air. Maybe it cools off her toes or something?

Around a week and a half or approximately ten days old, the baby bunnies open their eyes and start wobbling around the nest. They still aren't all that agile, but they can stagger around like a drunken sailor. Give her another week and she will be walking much more steadily.

We're still fixing and upping and this is still a 'before' picture. The front steps are pretty fragile although I suppose they at least haven't fallen off yet. There was a set of steps on the other side of the lanai, but they aren't there anymore. The whole front lanai will probably be replaced, we will see when we get that far how it goes.

This is still a 'before' picture, although work has started on it. The back kitchen window is my starting point. The sash cords had rotted through, possibly because they were only cotton? This house may have been built before Nylon was invented? Who invented nylon and when, anyway? Probably nylon was invented before 1953, but probably not more than several decades before so there wouldn't have been a whole lot of time for it to percolate down through the construction trades. So, anyway, the sash cords were broken so that was my first project.

After replacing the sash cords, the rest of the window got refurbished. Scraped and painted the window trim on the outside, too. Due to too much repair to the exterior walls if we wanted to paint, we're going to shingle them with three tab asphalt shingles instead. I don't know if they do that sort of thing on the mainland much, but around here they get used as siding fairly frequently on houses with much exposure to the weather. Paint just doesn't protect the house enough.

Not sure if we will shingle the walls up to the roof line or just up to the first belly band (those horizontal boards on the sides of the exterior walls).

That big white bundle on a pallet sitting on the back of that truck is all roofing shingles. Haven't a clue how much it weighs, but I'm glad we didn't try to bring them all home in the poor little car. We would have had to bring them several bundles at a time or squash the car and post it on UTube. The nice delivery driver brought it up to the back of the house for us. Yay! I really wasn't looking forward to hauling them up one bundle at a time. Its a lovely ocean view, but as usual, lovely ocean views happen on hillsides.

The squatters took out walls so the ceiling had fallen. Even though it's an automotive floor jack, we're using it to push up the ceiling. That's a temporary post and a temporary beam up at the ceiling to hold it up until we get a bit of wall built in there to hold it up. We put the jack on a big beam so it would spread the load and the jack feet wouldn't crack the kitchen floor tiles.

That jack, temporary post and temporary beam are holding the ceiling up by about two inches.

It's not much of a wall, about three feet width of wall, but it holds the ceiling up. Yay! It also hides the back of the refrigerator. Unless we decide to put the stove there, then it would hide the back of the stove.

Rather a bit blue, though, wouldn't you think? We had used the same color in the 'ocean' guest room at the other house, but it's a bit too blue for this smaller room. We've gotten new paint in a lighter blue color, we just haven't painted it on yet. But, other than being too blue, at least the bit of wall is there. There will be an eating counter between the kitchen and the living room. Probably a post under the edge of the ceiling beam where it meets the wall, but we aren't sure what we want it to look like yet.

Starting to fit in the kitchen counters. These were found at a yard sale, they actually fit pretty well for not being specific to this kitchen. The lower trim on the window will be installed after the counters are in place since the trim will meet the top of the counter.

Who knew the weedwhacker folks, Husqvarna, made 'Viking' sewing machines? Apparently so. This was found at the transfer station last week so it was taken to Crafty Group on Tuesday to see if it wanted to be rescued and restored. It's still in the 'maybe' category, although it's 'maybe - most likely' and not merely 'maybe'. How's that for definitive categorizing?

I'm not sure if the Viking 6030 sewing machine is one of the top collectibles, but it's reportedly a very fine sewing machine - when it works, anyway, of course. Apparently, back in '73 when this was built, Husqvarna decided to make a sewing machine that would NEVER need to be lubricated. What where they thinking? Who knows, maybe they'd had too much eggnog or whatever delusional drinks they may possibly imbibe in Sweden. Well, in any case, a mere forty six years later, (and the 25 year warranty ran out 21 years ago) the machine is in dire need of some lube.

Since it wasn't designed to be lubricated, there's no handy oil holes to use. Most sewing machines have oiling points, but not this one. So, it was semi-disassembled and oiled and things were starting to loosen up. However, then I got oil on the drive belt from the 'low gear' assembly. Apparently, instead of going like stink (which is what commercial sewing machines are famous for) this machine was designed with a low gear for really slow sewing. So there's a belt from the motor to the low/high gear assembly, then another belt from there to the drive shafts. The machine was about loosened up enough that the motor could turn it when I got oil on that one belt so either the oil needs to be cleaned off or the belt replaced before the motor will be able to run the machine. That will be next Tuesday's task.

One of the reasons I can work on a found at the transfer station sewing machine at Tuesday's Crafty Group is because the sewing project is finished. A new blue mu'umu'u is a perfect thing for hot summers. Traditionally, these are made with 'aloha' fabric, but I've started using batiks instead. The pattern is a Victora Jones pattern from the mid-eighties. The dresses were comfortable then and still comfortable now. Strangely enough, the address for Victoria Jones on the pattern envelope has a P.O. Box number at our local post office but nobody in town has heard of her.

After the 'new' Viking 6030 sewing machine is either repaired or sent back to the transfer station, then another sewing project will appear.

Just a gratuitous picture of some more yellow orchids. Just cuz they were blooming & look pretty.