Testing the Boundaries

Deb:

Freckles hopped around her little enclosure with spirited little jumps. She chewed on the wire and I hoped her teeth wouldn’t break. She poked and prodded the wire, and although it moved slightly, it did not give way. Suddenly, she was digging. This was not unexpected, however we didn’t want it to get out of hand, so my son moved to the spot and gave her a little nose rub while filling in the hole she’d made with his other hand.

She soon seemed to give up on escaping and plopped at the edge of one side. Before long she was asleep.

Attempted Escape

Freckles:

I couldn’t figure out any possible way of getting through the fence. I tried chewing the skinny sticks, but even my sharp teeth could not make a dent. I tried poking with my nose and pushing with my head. Still the fence did not give way. I tried digging. This created a nice little hole in the ground, however Nice Guy soon rushed to the spot and filled it back in, nudging me to another part of the grass.

I rested from my hard labors and munched a yellow flower that I found when it landed on my head. I would figure this puzzle out. Perhaps, I should sleep on it.

Safe and Sound

Deb:

Freckles hopped around her pen, making paths through the tall glass. My son and I set up guard duty on lawn chairs near the pen. I’m not sure what dangers lurk in our backyard, but it is not unknown for hawks to fly over and there are many cats in the neighborhood who frequent the safe haven of our fenced sanctuary. If Freckles was going to meet any furry neighbors, I wanted to be there to make sure everyone was safe.

The Grass is Always Greener ...

Freckles:

The cool grass tickled my feet as I hopped and explored the enclosure. I had to push my way through the grass in places, so thick had it grown, but I found the exertion glorious. I discovered a few more dandelion greens to savor. Some I ate, others I marked a place in my mind to come back to later when I was hungry again.

When I came to the fence which blocked further surveying of the landscape in that direction, I stopped and peered through its openings to the grass on the other side. That grass seemed particularly green and luscious. Hmmmmm. How could I get through the fence to those tasty treats?

Memories of Another Life?

Deb:

As soon as my son set Freckles down in the tall grass inside the pen, her body relaxed and rejoiced in the feel of the grass. She must have thought she was in Heaven. I wondered if she’d felt the grass under her feet at her former home. We had no idea what Freckles’ life had been like before she was found wandering on a city street and came to our house from the animal shelter. Had she jumped free in fields of lucious green grass? Had she roamed through a huge outdoor space? She seemed so happy and at home in this cool green refuge. Maybe she thought she's gone back to where she came from.

Jungle Grass - We Return to Our Story!

Freckles:

The tall jungle grass surrounded me and hid me from any dangers that might lurk in this wondrous place. Although it felt safe in this circle of security, I kept my senses alert for any strange sounds that might precede a predator’s advance. I sniffed the air and rejoiced in the splendiferous odor of uncut grass. I nibbled a bit of a blade that tickled my nose. Delicious! There is something about gathering one’s own food that ignites a spark of satisfaction deep inside. The feeling can’t be duplicated by food laid before one by a well-meaning person.

Not far ahead of me I saw a yellow flower poking it’s head through the grass. I binkied in the air and plucked the flower from it’s stem.

Kidlitosphere Blog Conference, Part 3

Just a few more pictures of the Kidlitosphere conference! Here are the participants, still smiling after a long day of discussing blogging. Don't we look like we all are ready to rush right home and kick our blogs up a notch? That's exactly what happened. People have been so enthused they've posted links to their blog posts about the conference here. You can head there and read all about the fun, if you so desire.

Meanwhile, here are a couple more pictures of Freckles posing with famous people!


On the left is another Deb, only this one has purple hair and horns! (Not really. We think we saw her with regular hair earlier in the day!) Her name is Deb Lund and she's written a very funny book called Monsters on Machines. She's also written a bunch of other fun books that you can see if you go to her site.


This is Freckles with Anastasia Suen, who is author of 110 books for children!!! (She's Deb's hero!) And the neat thing about her is that she is a real person. We discovered that you can talk to her and she doesn't act all famous or anything! How cool is that?

So, what did Deb and Freckles learn from this day surrounded by people who are just as crazy about blogging as we are? Well, here are three things that we are sure we learned:

1. We have to learn how to Twitter. People were Twittering all over the place directly from the conference and we were Twitterless.
2. We need to visit children's writing blogs more often and not be so shy about commenting when we do. (We certainly aren't shy about commenting on bunny blogs...hmmm...very interesting!)
3. We need to stay later at these things so we can take part in any future zombie sock puppet videos. Example here.

That's it from the conference. We'll get back to our interrupted adventure "The Jungle" very soon! Keep watching this space...

Freckles and Deb

Kidlitosphere Conference, Part 2

I'm adding a couple of new pictures of Freckles with some authors at the Kidlitosphere Blogger Conference.


First, we have Lisa Schroeder, who is the author of a fabulous young adult book called I Heart You, You Haunt Me. She has a second book coming out in January called Far From You. Grab a pen and write those titles down, because you're going to want to remember them!

In the next picture we have Zu Vincent (on the left) holding her wonderful new book Lucky Place. Doesn't she have the greatest name! I want a cool name like Zu Vincent. On the right is Lynn Hazen holding Freckles and Lynn's new book Cinder Rabbit. That's right, it's a bunny story! We know that Lynn has to be a good person if she wrote a bunny story!

We also want to share a really fun site for you to visit. I didn't get a picture of Gregory K, but his website is chock full of clever poems. He was one of the presenters and shared with us a poem he placed on his site on Friday, September 19 called "I'm Pretty Well Connected -- A Web 2.0 poem/an online poem/a social network poem." You've got to go to his site here and read that poem! (And while you're there, check out his other poems!)

We've given you enough links to visit for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more interesting people and links from the conference.

Freckles and Deb

Kidlit Bloggers Conference

Here is where Freckles and Deb spent last Saturday! We had a wonderful time. The conference presenters offered lots of information about blogging and kidlit (which is children's literature for those who were wondering!) It was held at the Sheraton Portland (Oregon) Airport Hotel.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking: She wasn't crazy enough to bring Freckles to a hotel conference, was she? Well, here's some proof:

That's Rachel (on the left) and Kim (on the right) and Freckles in the middle! They are a couple of Deb's friends and are soon-to-be-famous authors!

Now, here is where I need to apologize to another friend and also soon-to-be-famous author, Annette. You see, Annette also posed with Freckles, however I was having trouble with my camera. (I really should review the directions more often!) The picture didn't turn out very well. In fact it's not really a picture -- it's a fuzzy video that mostly shows the tablecloth with my voice in the background saying, "What's wrong with this camera?" So, Annette, I'm really sorry. I'll do better next time!

Here's another picture of Freckles posing with some people:

That's Laini (on the left ) and Jen (on the right) and, of course, Freckles in the middle.

Laini is the author of a terrific fantasy book called Blackbringer and is also one of the two organizers of the event (the other one is Jone. Somehow I didn't get her picture with Freckles.)

Jen has a very cool blog containing so much information about children's books and authors that your head might explode if you try to read it all! But trying is still lots of fun!

There is so much to share with everyone about this conference that I'll just have to come back tomorrow to continue. See you then!

Sticky Buns!

A Houseful of Rabbits and The Qi Papers have joined forces to create a new website called Sticky Buns! The object of this fun site is to print the image of your bunny on a sticker, stick the sticker on a not-so-usual place, and snap a picture. Rabbit Guy will capture that image and post it on the Sticky Buns site.

Easy, right?

Freckles and Deb have been working on this project for quite some time now.

• First, we had to find the sticker paper and buy it. That took a good week.
• Next, we had to find just the right pictures and print it out on the sticker paper -- that took another week.
• After that, we had to cut out the stickers. Well, that didn't really take a week, but we had to rest afterwards because we were tired from the buying and the printing.
• Once we had them cut out, we had to find just the right places to stick the stickers. We carried the stickers around with us until we located 2 perfect places.
• Then, we stuck the stickers and took the pictures.

But the activity did not end there. Oh, no, my friends! We had to download the pictures into our computer, do a little cropping, and write this explanatory post for the pictures.

Was all of this effort worth the outcome? You tell us. Here are our two pictures.

Freckles at her piano lesson...

And, at her CPR-Defibrulator (bet you didn't know Freckles is a trained CPR responder!)...

Come back tomorrow to see some pictures of where Freckles and I went on Saturday! Right now, we're exhausted and plan to take a nap!

(Oh, and our story "The Jungle" will return in a few days. In the meantime, we have a bunch of new stuff and cool links to share. It has to do with where we went on Saturday. Bet you can't wait to find out!!)

The Jungle

Freckles:

We passed through the portal and entered a whole new world. The brightness of the light hurt my eyes and I squeezed them shut. I didn’t want to miss anything however, so I slowly opened first one, then the other eye until they became used to the brightness. This world seemed vaguely familiar to me. Could I have been here in my before life – the time before I came to live in this world with Nice Guy and the high-voiced one?

I looked around and saw trees and bushes in a form I recognized. I felt the hot sun, but at the same time my fur was cooled by a slight breeze. I was in a wonderful place and Nice Guy had brought me here! Suddenly, in front of us I saw the object. The walls formed a circle surrounding delicious-looking grasses and yellow flowers. Nice Guy gently set me inside the circle.

Transporting Freckles

Deb:

After my son had set up the pen in the backyard amid the high grass, he returned through the back door and headed for the living room. Without giving Freckles a chance to get away, he scooped her up in placed her in his arms.

Freckles is not fond of being picked up – even when her favorite person is doing the lifting. She equates being held with having her nails trimmed, taking medicine, and going to the vet. Therefore, when my son grabbed her and placed her in his arms, her eyes widened and she hunched her head down into her body. I’m sure she must have been thinking that something awful was about to happen!

But, there was no other way to transport Freckles to the backyard. I was sure she’d forget the trip as soon as she was settled in the pen.

Indignity and Surprise

Freckles:

Nice Guy had taken the new object away. I didn’t know what to make of the situation. I’d just decided that I would return to my hiding place in the cave under the cliff when Nice Guy walked back through the portal to the Other World. Before I could say “Jack Rabbit,” he scooped me up and carried me to the mysterious portal in the Slippery Ground Land.

I was too surprised to react, but since I had never been through this portal, I forgave him the indignity I felt of him carrying me when I am perfectly capable of hopping wherever I need to go. I couldn’t wait to see what was on the other side of that portal.

Preparing the Playground

Deb:

My son said that he would set up the pen in the backyard. We had a section of grass that seriously needed mowing, but we had let it go to grow some tasty dandelions for Freckles. He headed for that section and pushed the metal spikes at the bottom of the fencing into the ground. It made a nice sized area for Freckles to roam. I knew she would be thrilled by this new exploring spot and couldn’t wait to see how she reacted.

Freckles Feels Slighted

Freckles:

The clattering, clunking object that Nice Guy pulled from the box was a mystery. What could it be? I was made of some kind of shiny material with small sticks attached, forming something that looked like a wall. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with such a thing. It wasn’t long before I learned that the object was not for me. Nice Guy picked it up and carried it out of the Other World and disappeared through the far portal in the Slippery Ground Land. Well, I guess I know where I rate in this clan!