March 7th, 2020
Bunny Surprise!
and a short tour of Iolani Palace
Well, the first five pictures or so are all the same babies, although they are a few days older by the end of the first group of pictures. It seems like a whole pile of them, doesn't it? But, there's only five 'surprise' babies.
This is a litter between Caesar, a tortoiseshell buck and Rosie, a black doe. Which means all the babies will have a recessive for tortoiseshell. Also, two of them are tortoiseshell. There's also an albino and two black ones. I haven't a clue as to their genders yet.
Rosie & Caesar's Babies
they had been hiding in the nest
This was a scheduled litter, they were supposed to show up, but when I looked in the nest box, there wasn't any extra fluff and the fluff that was there wasn't moving, so I'd figured Rosie hadn't had her litter.
Which, of course, since she'd not had a litter, that means that I'd let two girl bunnies go off to meet two boy bunnies. Figuring Rosie wouldn't need her nesting area, I lifted up the nest cover and was checking to see if the nest wool was clean enough to be used since sometimes bunnies get confused about the actual use of a "litter box" in the bunny world. It's usually called a 'nesting box' but they do have a litter of babies in it, if things work out as planned. Sometimes they will use it as a traditional cat-type litter box and that makes a mess.
Anyway, there was a big clump of wool on the top of the nest, a lot of wool in the rest of the nest and nothing was moving. Usually, when there's babies, the top of the wool is moving so you know to look further. When I was feeling under the clump of wool to see if the wool was clean, there were five babies under there! The clump of wool on the top had kept it from moving so they hadn't been noticed.
Getting Bigger
Aster & Buttercup's babies
Buttercup is a good mum and she built a nice nest but one of them got out of the nest and that's not good for baby bunnies so now there's just two. Baby bunnies are very delicate and mum buns can't pick them up like cats can and put them back in the nest when they get out. Which is why we have the dropped nesting areas in the official nest areas, but Buttercup was using the old style of nest box which has a flat bottom and a lip to keep the babies in. However, if they get over the lip it will keep them out instead of in, which is what I think happened. Some of the nest wool was pushed up against the back of the lip to keep them in which sort of made a ramp out.
Not that they are down to a litter of two, they now have as much as if not more than they can possibly eat. These two little ones have been some of the roundest baby bunnies, ever! I should weigh them to see how much they gained every day, but things have been crazy busy, so baby bunny weights didn't happen.
Baby Pineapples, too!
Not sure how often you get to see pineapples growing, around here they're kinda hiding in the landscapes here and there. I don't think they are commercially grown anywhere on this island and maybe not anywhere in the state anymore, but folks grow them in their yards. This was a pineapple top that had been twisted off. A few leaves are pulled off at the bottom to let the little root nubs be exposed, then it's just kinda pushed into the soil a little bit. This particular one is by the bunny hutch and gets bunny berries (bunny manure) tossed on it occasionally.
There are some others over in the raised bed garden, but they're not thriving at all. I'm guessing it's from less sunshine since the mulberry twig that was stuck in the ground over there to root has over done things and become a tree. Mulberry leaves and twigs are good for bunny forage, but mulberry shade isn't so good for pineapples, I'm guessing? If it's not because it's more shady, then perhaps the pineapples over there don't like the less acidic soil? Since the raised bed is made of concrete blocks, that may change the acidity of the soil and maybe pineapples don't like that? Maybe I'll just plant them somewhere else and see what happens. The pineapple by the bunnies is happy, though.
Iolani Palace
or 'a day trip to Oahu'
Occasionally we wander off the island, this was just a quick day trip to Oahu to help a friend with a doctor's appointment in Honolulu. Hawaii Island is pretty rural so when folks need more specific medical care, there will usually be a trip to Oahu involved. Sometimes folks can take a friend along as an aide. So, I got shanghaied for the day to go along with. This sort of thing - as usual -started at 4:30 am with an hour's drive to the airport. Then an hour and a half for airplane boarding and the forty five minute flight time. Then the half hour taxi ride to the medical center. Which still got us to the appointment two hours early.
Fortunately, they weren't that busy so they were able to move the appointment up and we were done there by 10:30 which was half an hour before we were even supposed to arrive. Woot! So, we had until 2:30 before we had to catch the taxi back to the airport and we were in downtown Honolulu. A tour of the nearby Iolani Palace seemed like an interesting thing to do.
Hawaii has the only royal palace in the United States. It was built by King Kalakaua in the late 1800's and had electricity well before the White House in Washington, D.C. So it was well ahead of the mainland, but no where near as fancy as some of the other royal palaces in Europe or Asia. But, for a small country that hadn't had royalty for all that long (the entire reign of Hawaiian Royalty was less than 100 years), it is a pretty nice palace.
The palace is pretty much designed around the central staircase. The palace is three stories with the first story halfway sunk into the ground. I'd always wondered why that was so, when we toured the lowest floor, it was pretty apparent that it was much cooler down there. I don't think it was air conditioned and it was significantly cooler. Not a lot of air conditioning in the late 1800's.
Comparing the palace to the big 'shore cottages' in Newport, Rhode Island - which were built around the same time, Iolani Palace is almost astere. There's less decorations and the walls are plain paint instead of silk or damask wallcoverings, paintings or frescoes. The main staircase doesn't have the additional wings off to the sides where folks would have been showcased as they were approaching the final descent. Perhaps being Royal instead of merely filthy rich like the Newport mansion builders, the King & Queen didn't need to show off before they descended the staircase?
Iolani Palace is also much smaller than those Newport mansions since there's only several bedrooms and no big dance floors. There isn't the sheer amount of decoration that many of the other fancy houses of the time had. Not sure if it was because they didn't live in it long enough to completely decorate it or if it was the style. It may have been too humid for all the frufru type decorations. It also doesn't seem as if koa was as beloved at the time since there didn't seem to be all that much of it used to construct the palace. Although koa is a much more difficult wood to work than many other types, the artisans may have opted for other woods for ease of construction.
Iolani Palace Throne Room
(there's a door between the thrones)
We were chatting with one of the docents there and she said they like to tell kids that the door between the thrones goes to Narnia. It doesn't really look like a door, sort of a fancy wood wall, but it would be a fun way to appear and disappear from the throne room. I forgot to ask, but most likely the room area behind the thrones is probably a robing room? There were a lot of areas we weren't able to peek into.
Not a hugely fancy dining room, more like a 'breakfast room' if it were in a different palace. But, it was also Honolulu of the 1800's, there were still a lot of folks living in houses made of grass. Hawaii also didn't have the same level of trade as other places, so palace building by a small somewhat impoverished country isn't going to be as crazy fancy as other places. Plus, it's the nicest palace for over three thousand miles in any direction.
Not sure how many folks could sit for a meal, more than forty would be crowded? Although, folks went by sailing ship at that time, there may not have been forty folks dining at any particular time very often. I'm not sure how extensive Hawaiian royalty went, there was the King & Queen, Princes and Princesses, but I don't know if it extended to Earls, Dukes, Barons, etc.
On the main floor, there was the main staircase with sort of a large hall area around it, the throne room off on the Diamond Head side of the building. The other side of the stair had several sitting/reception rooms as well as the dining room.
This yellow sitting room had an interesting hallway going to some sort of room off in the corner. We weren't able to go look into it, but I would have liked to. It might be interesting to draw up a room like that at some point.
On the main floor entrance doors, the door knobs were really low, probably about 24" to 30" off the ground? Most folks would have to bend over to reach them. Was this for structural reasons (more door frame that low) or did they expect servants to bow while opening the doors? I found it quite odd, I don't know if anyone else paid much attention to it, though.
There is sort of a 'moat' around the whole building, although that's from setting it into the ground instead of expecting to fill it with water. I'm thinking that's what kept the entire lower floor to a very cool temperature even though it was quite a warm day in Honolulu.
There were several rooms downstairs where it was cool. Not sure if they were for servants or the family, there were quite a few different rooms. One was the kitchen, it had a shiny yet concrete floor. The other rooms also had a concrete floor, but it had been finished in some dark color with gold accents. Quite a nice floor. The kitchen had a dumb waiter, so the food could get up to the dining room above and still be warm.
Apparently around that time, folks liked to have 'orders' or society groups. They seems to each have their own medallions to go with as well. There were several photographs of the King wearing lots of them, as well as the same medallions made into jewelry for the Queen to wear.
The King's bed had a lovely quilt on it. The motto on it "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono" is still in use today as the state's motto.
It was a fun day trip to Oahu, but now back to rural Hawaii Island and preparing the back yard for sheep.
Once the yard is fenced, we're hoping to get two sheep to do the mowing for us. As you can see, the grass is a bit tall back there and in need of someone to eat it.
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