The Totally Organic and Only Somewhat True Journals of Betty B. Bunny

Monday 

What I Am Wearing: Purple jacket, mauve tank top, jeans, white sneakers

I was busy this morning at my writing desk in the carrot (what bunnies call the upper floor), and my assistant Tricia brought in a delivery of chocolate-coated radishes, and the rest of the mail, such as it is these days.

There was a Fast Bunny Mail message from my old friend Lucy Pocket, who lives at the far end of Bunnyland. "Can you come quickly? I am being entirely pestered with strange creatures here, and it is most worrisome." As you know, I detest travel, but I'm fond of Lucy and her children, so I decided to go and see what was up. 

Tricia is most efficient at booking Bunny Airlines tickets, so I let her take care of those details, but perhaps I shouldn't have, because she got me one of those cheap seats where the luggage allowance is about the same as a three-pound bag of carrots.

So, after five minutes' thought, because that's about all the time I had, I stashed the following items of clothing in my little rolling backpack:

White blazer

Teal tank top

Sage-green pants

Navy dress

Bright green top, because one cannot have too many shades of green tops

Navy t-shirt

A dressy pair of navy shoes

A pair of striped shoes because I really like shoes

William Morris print silk scarf

Pajamas and such necessary things

I threw my big earplugs and a few things for the children into my purse, and we were off to the airport. It is a bit warm today to be wearing this jacket, but it is full of handy pockets and it also keeps one cozy when the air-conditioning blows hard, so there we are.

Now, you may be wondering why I would choose those things; indeed, you may  well question my folly in bringing a blazer, or anything white at all, if you know those young bunnies. However, I am not entirely off my ears and tail with this. Since I'm taking the trouble to travel, and I hope that Lucy's critter problems are mouse-sized and easily solvable, I may as well make a couple of other stops. Hence the dress and the shoes and the blazer. And my best scarf. But if you think that means I intend to visit Aunt Aubergine while I'm there, you are sadly deceived.

Later

As Lucy and I had tea, there was a shuffling noise behind her, and I assumed that this was one of the creatures that were upsetting the household.

"Wheek, wheekity." "Is this the problem?" "No, this is our garden club chairwoman, Tufty Tuppence."

"Squeak squeakity."

"You have squirrel intruders?" "Oh no, not at all. This is our English neighbour, Madam Red Squirrel." 

"Then what's the great problem that had to bring me all the way across Bunny Land?" "These little red things. They're scaring the children."

"Seriously, Lucy?"

"Oh, do stop glaring at me, Betty. You know I can't stand bugs." "So tell them their house is on fire and send them on their way." "Oh, thank you excessively! I knew you would have the right answer."

You're welcome, I guess. But really? The rabbits who cried ladybug.

Well, let's get some dinner.

Tuesday

What I Am Wearing: Green top, green pants, sneakers, William Morris scarf

Lucy and I did a bit of shopping in the morning. 

She was quite taken with this lace-trimmed gown, but it did not have any pockets so that was a deal-breaker.

We also stopped in at the green-grocers. I dislike that rabbit very much, as every time we visit, he finds some way to tease me. Today it was my outfit. "Ha, all green just for me?" Ugh, bachelors.

Wednesday

What I Am Wearing: White blazer, navy dress, navy pumps, jewelry. 

I suppose if I went back to the green-grocers today, he'd ask me if I'm joining the navy. 

But I will not have to do that, thankfully, as I said my goodbyes to Lucy and rolled my bags onto the mornig train. I'm off to a bookstore in the next town, where they've asked me to sign copies of my new book, How to Be Nifty in a Jiffy at Fifty. Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit came and bought a copy for herself and one for Cousin Ribby.

Young Maud also stopped in and sang cheerfully for half an hour.

Well, that emptied the bookstore, so I gathered my things and went back to the train station. The waiting room was full of young rabbits all wearing red capes. Is this the latest trend? I will have to investigate this more fully.

I got off at Cabbage Gate, and stayed overnight with Tricia's sister Phoenicia and her husband Misha. He took this picture of us discussing that new book series, Ima Rabbit, about a Victorian lady's diary. 

Phoenicia thinks the Ima Rabbit books are wonderful, but I can't think why anyone would want to let people read their personal thoughts, let alone publish them. Misha said he knows who the author is. Phoenicia said, well, of course it's right there on the cover. Misha said no, that's just her quill-pen name. I said, ever skeptical, how do you know then? 

Misha just smiled.

Which leaves all the possibilities open. Who is the secret author? I don't think it could be Misha. 

Please don't say it's the green-grocer. 

Or Aunt Aubergine. Horrors.

Thinking it over.

Thursday

What I Am Wearing: White blazer, green tank top, green pants, William Morris scarf, striped shoes

Did you expect something red today? No, as I'm still living out of my emergency-packed suitcase, I am mixing and matching from those things.

I am making one more stop before returning home tomorrow. Last year I sprained my paw and had to go to the emergency clinic. While I was sitting on a hard chair, waiting and moaning and being my usual grumpy self (oh, I know!), a family with young rabbits sat down in the seats opposite. I did not pay a lot of attention to them at first, but as we had all been sitting there much longer than any of us would have liked, we began to make some tentative chit-chat. They also allowed me to take a photograph. These are the Ruffletail parents with their youngest child, who, as you may notice, was not a rabbit at all, but a very little baby bear. They had taken it in, but it was "poorly," as we used to say, and they had gotten to know the clinic quite well.

The good news is that, with a lot of love and care, the bear began to flourish and is now a beloved member of their household, although his increased size and appetite (particularly for cheeseburgers and root beer) has caused some difficulties. I may or may not have helped the Ruffletails out a bit over the past months.

He calls me Auntie Betty.

Which reminds me, I had a Fast Bunny Mail message from Aunt Aubergine. She is demanding that I go and see her. I suppose I can manage it before I go home. I was going to wear my purple jacket, t-shirt, and jeans tomorrow for travelling, but Aunt A. won't appreciate that. Well, I'll have a look in my little bag and see what's still decent.

Friday

What I Am Wearing: Purple jacket, navy t-shirt, jeans, sneakersx Navy dress, layered with navy t-shirt, and the good shoes, which I have discovered pinch my rabbit bunions after about the first ten minutes. Well, hopefully I won't be at Aunt A's too long, and then I can change back into my sneakers.

"Well," she said. "It's about time you showed up." "How are you, dear Aunt?" I asked. "Don't dear Aunt me. You have a lot of explaining to do."

Some people tell me I have a death stare. I guess I know where I got it from.

"I don't understand. What's the trouble?"

Aunt Aubergine gave up on the death stare, but was still obviously not happy. "I happen to own a publishing company," she began. "Don't I know it, you haven't accepted even one of my books," I said. "Be quiet," she said. "Recently we began publishing a very successful series. You may have heard of it. It's called Ima Rabbit."

See Betty Bunny be very puzzled about where this is going.

"The main character in this series has a very dreadful rich aunt," she says.

See Betty Bunny continue to be puzzled.

"What I would LIKE to know," sniffs Aunt Aubergine, "is why the royalty cheques are going to your address?"

See Betty Bunny be completely rabbitghasted. Also, my shoes are pinching horribly.

"And, moreover, why you found it necessary to portray me in such a fashion? Stop wiggling your rabbits' feet in that repulsive manner and explain yourself."

"My shoes hurt."

"Not that, the rest of it."

"Honestly, auntie, I have no idea. Actually, I am starting to get one idea, but I'll have to do some investigating."

"Humph."

And with that, she let me go.

An hour later

I haven't unpacked yet. I have some thinking to do.

"Answering fan mail, are we?" "Oops. Busted."

"Are you mad?" 

"I always knew  you had it in you."

P. S. I still haven't figured out the red thing. Maybe that's another story.

Pendelfin rabbits are from my collection. Backgrounds and extra characters are from:

Common Place Quarterly

Better Homes and Gardens Cottage Style Spring 2026

The Ultimate Peter Rabbit: A  Visual Guide to the World of Beatrix Potter

From the archives: Don't Fence Me In

First posted July 2007

On Friday night Mr. Fixit and I went out on a date.

First we drove downtown to a summertime cruise night: a couple of the streets were closed off, and the car buffs were showing off their Mustangs and BelAirs. Since the show was downtown instead of out at the Knights of Columbus hall or the A&W, there was a mixture of life-on-the-street (good, bad and ugly) and the nostalgic-boomer crowd (good, bad, and beer-bellied). We toured around, listening to "Sweet Little Sixteen," and remembering how we used to do this more often before we had Squirrelings. Mr. Fixit spotted a friend's former Corvette (he recognized the stereo that he, Mr. Fixit, had installed years ago). There was lots of chrome, lots of turquoise.

Then we walked over to an eco-hippie cafe--Mr. Fixit says they serve hemp and flax tarts. Actually what we had was fair trade coffee and some kind of lemon bars (I suspect they were gluten-free as well as sugar-free, but they were fairly tasty nonetheless). We sat there, watching a few chrome-laden latecomers driving by, and looking at the things for sale in the cafe: handmade purses and dreamcatcher-type jewelery, herbal lotions, and books about saving the earth by riding bicycles.

I wondered, not for the first time, where we fit into either or both of these scenarios.

Sometimes we kind of wish we lived in the age of chrome: things may not have been simpler then, but they didn't fall apart as fast. The Treehouse is a 1960 raised bungalow, it still has a turquoise bathtub with pink tiles, and Grandpa's toolbox is still in the basement. We have family chips-and-ping-pong parties in the garage on weekend afternoons--that's what makes us happy.

We've had our slightly-crunchy period, but I don't think I'd want to live in a loft and pull little Raven and Moonchild around in a bike trailer. The last (and only) time I went on a protest was over twenty years ago, and that was under duress. We don't spray our lawn, but that's not out of any particular ideology other than thinking that dandelions in the grass smell nicer than chemicals. We've tried out the new kind of lightbulbs, but when the one over the sink started to fizzle and smoke, Mr. Fixit reinstalled the old bulb (which gives better light anyway).

On the other hand, the Squirrelings were born at home, and we homeschool--that's enough for some people to think we're on the crunchy end of things. We don't buy much at big malls or monster supermarkets, and get annoyed by upscale-trendy makeovers to our usual shopping places. (Renovations to a small local mall took out Liquidation World and a family-run coffee shop, and replaced them with Ugly-Home-Things-You-Don't-Need and a Thai restaurant.) If we can support a small business instead of a big box store, we do. If we can hang onto something and fix it, we do. (Grandpa's tools and Mr. Fixit's soldering iron.) Maybe we're still a little crunchy.

But that's what Grandma and Grandpa were doing fifty years ago in the Age of Chrome. Well, not homeschooling, but the other things.

So what does that make us then? Just odd? Or just old?

From the Archives: How Not to Overthink Lessons (and Polaroid cameras)

First posted in 2014

At the end of School Education, Charlotte Mason does talk very specifically about what a curriculum based on her "educational manifesto"--she jokingly refers to it as the Children's Magna Carta--would look like. Or what it did look like in 1903, twelve years after the Parents' National Educational Union had begun to offer a formal curriculum. I tend to think of this time in the P.U.S. as sort of its adolescence, if childhood was the beginning period in the 1890's, and maturity was sometime in the teens through the time of Mason's death in 1923. Middle age?--the still-going-strong nineteen-twenties, thirties, forties, probably till after the war. Declining years would be the time of increasing school standardization, changing culture, and other things that seemed to de-popularize PNEU methods, at least for a while.

But anyway, what she's describing here is not too far off from the format of the term programmes I'm more familiar with, those of the 1920's and early 1930's. There are some book differences, especially in subjects like mathematics and grammar, and some of the subjects aren't as fleshed-out here as they were later on, but the overall shape of the curriculum had been pretty much set by this time. In fact, she suggests that the PNEU had now been "beta-tested" enough in private homes to be recommended to classroom teachers.

Buried in those notes just before the end of the book, she gives a list of six causes of failure in education.

a) Too many oral lessons.

b) Too many lectures.

c) Too many "text-books."

d) Focusing on any intellectual motivation other than the desire of knowledge, e.g. prizes, liking the teacher

e) Too many gadgets, manipulatives and models

f) Too many "Readers."

Four out of those six items on the list are basically the same thing: read books, real books. Isn't that a relief for teachers? Maybe not such good news for textbook publishers, but doesn't that actually take the pressure off the rest of us?

You do not have to know everything. You do not have to spend hours Googling information and activities to teach the circulatory system or the Elizabethan stage. You do not need to buy out the teacher's store, or have every science kit in the homeschool catalogue. You do not need a rack of expensive teaching posters, or a boxful of stickers. You do not have to depend either on your own superior knowledge, or on the availability of the latest technology. It seems to me that you'd have to put more effort and money into these less productive activities, than you would in simply offering a generous serving of books, sauced with some real things and other "affinities." It's less burdensome to do what's more productive....to let the students dig for themselves.

For some reason that reminds me of one of John Holt's books*, where he had bought a Polaroid camera and decided, on the spur of the moment, to unbox it and try it out right there in the classroom. Here's a package, here's what's in it, here's the camera, here's the instruction booklet, let's try it out together. What's this for? What if we try that? Can I do it too? This may sound like it's getting away from Charlotte's emphasis on books and natural objects, but here's my point: this activity came out of something real. It did not take John Holt hours to plan. It did not come with worksheets or a quiz afterwards. It did not come in a package marked "Afternoon with a Polaroid Camera: Oral Communication and Technology Objectives." It wasn't a lecture, it wasn't even an oral lesson--it was an experience with a real thing that grownups were using. Yes, the kids enjoyed it partly because they liked John Holt, but what they really wanted to know was what was in the box and how it worked.

Charlotte repeats her point on page 247, the last page of the main text: "that the young people shall learn what history is, what literature is, what life is, from the living books of those who know." Yes, she says, many of the best schools did use books, but, in her opinion, not enough of them, and they didn't make full use of them. So she adds appendices to show "how a wide curriculum and the use of many books work in the Parents' Review School."**

*Holt's book What Do I Do Monday? has some fantastic ideas for getting kids engaged with concepts such as size, speed, and strength, using "real" measurement tools.

**What the Parents' Union School was called at that time.

One Bunny

 

Spring Ahead (Without Even One Bunny)

The theme of this spring wardrobe update is trying to use what I have as long as possible, rather than defaulting to discarding or donating.

But it's also about a scarf. I had wanted this William Morris-inspired scarf for quite a long time, and was recently presented with it as a welcome surprise gift from a daughter.

Here it is with this year's new-to-me spring purse and sneakers, and last year's yard-saled purse.

 

More green...

We all go through life changes, and that includes body changes. Six years ago (no, seven), I bought a green t-shirtdress from Duffield Design. I reviewed it here and wore it a lot, but for various reasons, it doesn't fit me as well as it used to, and I was going to rehome it this spring. Then I remembered how comfortable it was, and how much I liked that bright green. It's still in good condition (even after seven years); and it's a perfect match for the new scarf. So, while I might not be wearing it as a dress this year, it still makes a very good top or tunic (it was designed to be versatile like that).

I used to have a (thrifted) navy sleeveless dress, which unfortunately shrunk (or maybe that was me again); anyway, I had hoped to find a replacement, and Duffield Design happens to be featuring navy sleeveless dresses this year, so I bought one, along with an off-white blazer (shown below). I am definitely not giving up on my thrifter status, but once in awhile it is also okay to choose well-made (and Canadian-made) new clothes. Hopefully I will be wearing these pieces seven years from now as well.

The top under the blazer also happens to be DD, bought last year.

Back to the theme of keeping things going: last year I found a pair of summer pants, and I liked them very much except that their fastening included buttons, slide clips, and a forlorn-looking ribbon waist tie.  As another daughter used to quote, "ain't nobody got time for that."  I was about to put them in the giveaway bag this year, but then I suddenly had a brainwave and pulled the ribbon tie right out of its casing. Now the pants even fit better. Should have thought of that a long time ago.

And here's one more "keep it, don't ditch it." This is a navy washable-silk shirt, kind of vintage. I had it in the bag to donate because...I'm lazy and I don't like to iron, and while this shirt is easy enough to clean, it does need ironing to look good. Earlier this year, I bought a popover style navy shirt, brand new, which I thought would replace this one nicely. Except that, after only a couple of washings, it's smaller than it was, and this time it's not me. Out of spite to that new thing that did not at all hold up the way I expected, I will be resurrecting my old shirt. I just need to retrieve my iron from the domicile of the third daughter, who has been using it to iron dolls' hair. Don't ask.

So what else goes with the new and old things? Lots of navy, some blue, some white. Here are a few more random photos.

Random note: this long-sleeved blue t-shirt doesn't look like much, and it's another of those things I skip over and wonder if I really need. But when I do wear it, that shade of blue always makes me happy, and it also happens to look quite nice with the new scarf, so it's staying.

Below: linen shirt from Talbots that I found at a yard sale right around the corner from our house.

Below: linen pullover that I've been wearing for several years.

Here's to spring.

Last updated March 20, 2026 (because today is spring!)