good 'n planty

Hello! Hope you had a restful holiday. I had a great time with my family and friends but I'm happy to be back to my daily routine. This is the time of year for drinking tea, bundling up for bitterly cold walks and staring wistfully at your garden before going inside to read seed catalogs.

Although it seemed like I had something to do every day I was on vacation, I managed to do a couple domestic things I've been wanting to take care of, for example: try out this newspaper litter for my petit lapin, Jackson.

I had been using Yesterday's News for his litter box but when I found directions on how to make newspaper litter at home, I thought I would give it a try.

I collected some newspapers from my parents, faithful crossword puzzle-solvers, and brought them to work to shred. I waited until after everyone had left for the day since it's a noisy process and thank goodness I did- when I removed the shreds, paper debri went everywhere! I had to borrow a vaccuum cleaner to clean up my big mess.

After that minor setback, I brought the load of shredded newspaper home and soaked it in a tub with some soap and baking soda. After it soaked for a few hours, I drained the newspaper, squeezed as much water out as I could, and let it dry on towels on my bathroom floor. for days.

A friend casually referred to my soggy newspaper covered floor and asked- "Art project or science experiment?" "Neither," I replied, with growing anxiety about the possibility of growing mold. After day three, I spread every last clump of paper mache on a baking sheet and baked them in the oven on low heat. That did the trick and here's the final product:

At the end of the day, I don't know if making homemade bunny litter is for me. Sure it was essentially free, a tad more eco-friendly than buying new, rabbit-approved, and will make a pretty nice mulching material, but I think the oven-baking kind of put me over the edge. Maybe in the summer when I can dry it out in the sun I'll try again. At least the bunny is happy.