Summer, 2014
My Pets Aren't Spoiled
(I'm Just Well-Trained)
Here I stand, peeling carrots…
It took three months of trial and error, but Ducky either nailed it or came as close as humanly possible to cracking the code. In the meantime, we ate a lot of carrot cake.
We knew Hippy Gypsy puts two pounds of carrots in each 4-layer cake. They boast the fact on the menu and in all their ads. Walnuts and pineapple were easy to nail, too. The balance of spices took three weekends to perfect. It was the texture that was so elusive. Remembering how I had used a baby food grinder to turn our dinner into baby food for Lexi, Ducky discovered the ultra-moist cake was from half of the carrots being almost pureed.
For three months we ate carrot cake every weekend. For three months, Harvey the rabbit got shredded carrots in his food bowl.
Ellis (the guinea pig Ducky had brought home with Harvey; I no longer let him go to Petsmart with Lexi in tow) tried one bite, decided we were trying to poison him, and went back to his steady diet of guinea pig chow. Harvey, on the other hand, is willing to eat almost anything. And it was funny as hell to watch. He'd drag a piece of carrot out of the bowl and go nibblenibblenibble and it would slowly disappear in his mouth like a toddler sucking down spaghetti. I guess all kids play with their food, no matter what species.
Ducky would have normally just scraped the carrots, but at the beginning of this experiment Lexi had developed a "thing" about hairy food. The slightest tendril would send her fleeing, so carrots got peeled. Kiwi became a non-starter. Potatoes better not have even the tiniest sprout. Sure that she'd outgrow it, we just shrugged and peeled.
Over the weeks, the allure of kiwi-strawberry smoothies won out, and a blindfold test of a well-scrubbed carrot versus a peeled one settled the issue when she couldn't tell the difference. Patience: 1; Picky Eating: 0
After Ducky triumphed over recipe reverse engineering, I tried my hand at translating his scribbled notes, planning to bake one for the store as a blind taste test. I scrubbed the carrots and whacked off the ends for Harvey and the compost bin.
"Could you please peel the carrots?" I looked at Lexi in surprise. "For Harvey," she said quickly. "He liked the shredded carrots."
"He'll live." I handed her the bowl of veggies and followed her to the hutch in the back yard. I carried out the bucket of litter from the garage and supervised the cleanup. (Your pets, your chores.) Fresh cedar shavings in his nest area, water bottle refilled, fresh kibble and a bowl of veggies—
"I told you so." She—wisely—didn't sound smug. Harvey had sniffed the veggies and hopped to the other side of the hutch in disgust.
"Harvey! Dude!" I pulled out a carrot stub and waved it in front of his nose. "Good eats!"
Giving me a suspicious look, he sniffed the carrot… bit into the carrot… glared and threw his head back, pulling the carrot from my fingers and flinging it over his head. "SNEEF!"
Ever been cussed at by a rabbit?
I have.
So, here I stand, peeling carrots…
…for a rabbit…
Her name was Allie and she was a black rabbit. Yes, I reduced all her carrots to ribbons. That's as close as I can get to her cussword…
If you know the story "Pigs Is Pigs" you know how Ellis got his name.