Virtual Quill

I just uploaded a video to YouTube but I took it down after Rudy begged me. (Getting to see the whole begging thing was the reason I posted the video in the first place.)
Dad and Kell are away for their second honeymoon. After they arrived they texted me that the woodland resort where they’d gone on their first honeymoon was indeed under new management. A mouse named Goldilocks was now running the place instead of the bear family that had earlier been in charge. I’ll bet there’s a story behind that.
After they finished unpacking I didn’t hear from them for quite a while.
When they did check in it was via the cabin’s land line. Kell telephoned to say that there was no cell phone service or wireless Internet connection within range. (Apparently Goldilocks isn’t that great a resort manager; the literature claims the cabins have both.) I just hope Dad doesn’t do anything to put himself in danger, like wandering around outside to look for a signal. He usually doesn’t have anything to fear from most predators, but if he’s distracted enough he might let his guard down.
But, hey, if he stays inside with Kell he’ll be safe.
Kell just called. Crap.
She’s going out now to find him.

Coney’s now three, and with her newfound maturity (i.e., not eating anything unrelated to her) she’s able to be trusted without an adult constantly supervising her movements for the protection of others. One of the side benefits of this development is that Dad and Kell can finally take a vacation by themselves. (Elanor and Gran will look after Coney, with Rudy helping out until Friday night when I return from college for the weekend.)
After long and careful consideration of the myriad of options available to them, Dad and Kell decided to return to the cabin in the woods where they spent their honeymoon. They were thrown off by the name change; it’s now called Goldilocks Resorts. It was called something else when they stayed there.
The website describes it as an “enchanted forest getaway, free from the stresses of civilization, yet with all the amenities unavailable to the Wild denizens. It’s the Best of both worlds!!!” (Exclamation points theirs.) They go on to wax rapturously over the lush terrain and babbling brooks.
I doubt that my folks will see much of the exterior anyway.
This week's question for you married humans: Where did you go on your honeymoon?

There’s been a national scandal here involving a peanut processing factory that was so unregulated that salmonella got into the supply and sickened many. The carnivores who don’t eat peanuts (like Rudy) got awful smug about it until herbivores (like Dad) reminded them that the prey that they eat consume the product.
As an insectivore I eat pretty far down on the food chain, but I do know that’s not a guarantee of safety. The bugs that make up my diet eat either smaller bugs or flora, but they in turn rely on our water supply. We’re all interconnected. In a sense, the Circle of Life can accumulate a lot of dirt unless it’s cleaned up regularly.
I’ve been coming home on weekends during my college career, partly to tend to Hare-Link’s tech and also to help Dad and Kell by looking after Coney. Coney’s getting older, though, and doesn’t seem to need as much attention. She and Francis play in yard a lot, and Coney’s reputation keeps both of them safe. I end up mainly websurfing on my laptop.
Today's question: Humans are omnivorous, I know, so how do you keep your food supply safe, considering that you pretty much eat nearly everything?

Dad has always been an outcast among his own kind, which has always been a burden for him. (When his career relied on other rabbits hiring him, he went nowhere; he only found success in self-employment and in starting his own business.) His election to the school board hinged on the votes of other species, and as for his being appointed to the Rabbit Council...That was due to their wanting Coney at their meetings to protect them.
What I’m saying is that Dad’s success has always come in spite of how other rabbits felt about him personally. The events of this week may have finally changed that, or maybe it will be the first step in changing that. What happened is that because Dad isn’t as insular as other rabbits, he produced a business deal that will benefit everybody.
It was because of Hare Link that he came to discover that Beaver Construction needed fill dirt which, as I mentioned last week, is something that rabbits continually produce from tunneling. He approached the executives of that company (which are all raccoons; beavers themselves are too focused on the engineering side to care about management) and negotiated the deal. Suddenly, Dad’s experience with other species is seen as an asset, not a betrayal.
This week's question: Here we have currencies common to each nation, and also currencies that each species use among themselves. It's complicated. Do humans have a simpler system?

Times are tough here, as more and more businesses face difficulties. Thankfully, Hare Link is keeping its head above water, thanks mainly to low overhead, low debt and the contract we have with the city. A bigger asset is probably Danielle, whose number crunching has been keeping costs down.
Herd Thinners, Inc. with its global customer base is probably safe, falling into the category of Too Big To Fail. Other than that, most local businesses are just trying to survive. That would presumably include the ones down in the Rabbit Warren.
I bring that up because Dad will be attending another Rabbit Council meeting this week. (As usual, he’s required to bring Coney along.) I haven’t paid much attention to the goings-on down there in recent years, even though it’s where I grew up. I have no connections to the place anymore.
Still, due to Dad’s position I’ve gleaned that they’re also suffering along with everyone else. The problem is real estate, but not in the way it works here on the surface. We buy and sell land. Rabbit buy and sell tunnels, i.e., the absence of land. Real estate is measured not in acres but in cubic feet to indicate the size of the excavation.
During the past decade, too many tunnels were built too quickly by too many speculators as prices skyrocketed from lax oversight. Then the market collapsed.
Literally.
A number of tragic cave-ins led to loss of confidence in tunneling construction, and people stopped buying new, untested tunnels. The rest is history. Now, rabbits are trying to get their economy running again, but they need to find something to sell to us surface-dwellers. That’s going to be the problem Dad will address this week.
Another problem is that it’s March, when rabbits have a hard time focusing on...well, anything.
This week's question: how do humans handle real estate? With us, our lots extend to the limit of our tree's root system.