What are Some Fun Date Ideas?

Ever since Cole and I started dating the amount of TV I watch has skyrocketed. He was pretty much raised by television, so having it on for hours and hours every day is just natural to him, whereas before we moved in together I didn't even OWN a TV. So, in order to keep us from being completely sedentary and in the hopes of preventing us from getting stuck in a rut, I thought it would be fun to initiate a "TV-free day" every week. Or, at least a TV-free HALF day, during which we would do something fun that gets us off the couch and maybe even out of the apartment.

What I thought would be a good way to keep things spontaneous but still helps us out if we ended up blanking on what we should do with our TV-free time is if we wrote down an assortment of random activities on little slips of paper and put those slips of paper in a hat, or bag, or some other such receptacle. Then, at the appropriate time, we can simply draw out one idea and do whatever it says on the paper. Yesterday I wrote down about sixty ideas, and while some of them I came up with on my own, I did need a little help in the creativity department. So, I searched the internet for what other people thought made for a great date. 

Some of the ideas for "things to do with your mate" were obviously posted by crazy people and/or teenagers, and were completely ridiculous for a couple who has been together for over a year now. But I found that if I was persistent and scrolled past the idiot ideas I did occasionally come across a thought or suggestion that tickled my fancy. In case you were curious, here are some of the activities that I threw in the hat: 

take a midnight walk	take family pictures with Butters
fool around on guitars together	go to a g-rated movie
go for a meal at a restaurant chosen from the phone book based on its name alone	slow-dance together
film a nature documentary	feed the geese
play Scrabble	have a hangman or tic tac toe tournament
make bucket lists	visit Mamaw and Ed

Naturally, I ALSO think it would be fun to document our experiences, so every week there should be a post in this blog that doesn't exactly follow the usual question-and-answer structure, but I hope whoever reads this will enjoy the posts nonetheless. And of course, feel free to offer up any of your own recommendations for things you like to do with your own significant others. 

Is it Legal to Raise Bunnies for Food?

This evening I was at work, answering calls as per usual, when one of our humane society clients received a call on their after-hours emergency line. Usually I hate getting calls for these guys because their on-call staff is incredibly unhelpful and rude, so I wasn't very excited to answer the line.But, you know, I'm paid to do it, so I sucked it up and picked up. The woman on the other end of the line was very, very nice. She introduced herself (let's call her Mallory) and I gauged her to be around my age, judging from the way she spoke and the timbre of her voice. She explained that she had a very odd situation she needed to talk to someone about and then prodded along by me started sharing her concerns. 

Mallory told me that her and her husband had brought in a rabbit to the SPCA that morning, but that when she got home they found another three or four in their backyard. She explained that she had new neighbours to the one side of her, and that they'd only been living next door a few months. Very politically correct, she described them as being of a 'different cultural background.' Mallory then went on to say that as weird as she knew it sounded, she believed that they were eating their bunnies. And I say bunnies because that was exactly how she referred to them throughout the conversation - never as rabbits, only as bunnies. Mallory then proceeded to tell me that there'd been a few times where her and her husband had smelled a strange smell coming from next door, and that it was like burning hair (which I thought was funny, cause, you know, hair? hare? tee hee). So, one day she peeked her head over the fence and saw in their backyard a large pen about four times the size of a garden shed and it was FILLED with bunnies. 

Naturally, I had no idea what to say at first. Our on call personnel is only for emergencies, and I told her as such, explaining that I didn't think they'd be able to help her as even though I would never kill and eat a bunny, I didn't think it was illegal to do so. She was so appalled, and it was totally cute, but it did make me wonder - IS it illegal to kill and eat rabbits in your backyard?

And nope, it isn't. You can totally raise meat rabbits, slaughter them, and consume them. In fact, there aren't really any rules or regulations about doing so. Also, judging from the posts on the internet, its more popular than I would have ever suspected. Unfortunately, my researches also illuminated me (as unwilling as I was to learn) what's involved in the slaughter of rabbits, and now I will never be able to 'un' learn that information. 

There are some interesting things I did read, though, which kinda make me think. This particular response to a reader's question impressed me. It is regarding small animal husbandry in big city areas, and though the site is from a Calgarian point of  view, I thought what was written was very thorough and educational. You can check that out here: http://www.greencalgary.org/ask-ashley/details/micro-livestock-in-the-city.

I also learned that rabbits are illegal in Queensland, Australia!! I had some fun skimming this: http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/documents/Biosecurity_EnvironmentalPests/IPA-Keeping-Rabbits-As-Pets-PA15.pdf, and really enjoyed that they put a scary red-eyed bunny in the picture!

And, because it is too cute not to post, a pic I found under Google images. You can thank me later!

How Can You Tell if a Kitten is Male or Female?

So, I'm participating in the glorious November event National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to the pros) and am currently working on my 50,000 word pile of crap. I'm starting to understand what authors mean when they say that their story seems to write itself because I'm experiencing that first hand. In my novel, currently untitled, my main character has just found a little cat on her balcony. She wants to keep this cat, and give it a special name, but she can't name it until she knows what gender it is!

Since this is a mystery I, myself, have experienced, I decided to do a little online research. I thought this would also be a perfect topic for this blog as I imagined there would be a plethora of heinous pictures I could post in here. But, after doing some reading, and looking at some startlingly frank images, I've decided that if you want to see the pictures you can follow the link yourself. I'd rather not assault anyone's unsuspecting eyes!

I can give you the skinny on sexing a kitten, though.

Firstly, under the tail of a kitten there will be two little openings, one above the other. The first little opening is their anus, and the second opening that sits below the anus is their genitals. On a male cat, the space between the two openings is farther apart than on a female, because in between the anus and the genitals is where the kitty's little testicles grow! Also, with the opening for the genitalia, on a male it is shaped like a dot, and on a female like a sideways slit. 

You can see graphic images to demonstrate these tips here: http://www.pet-informed-veterinary-advice-online.com/sexing-kittens.html. 

Otherwise, I shall leave you with this: