I grew up a farm girl…starting at the ripe age of 13. Following the parental retirement from the military, we moved to the family farm. It’s a quaint sum of land in southeastern Missouri where my grandfather raised cattle, occasionally chickens, a couple of horses, and for a long time: rabbits. 

Time passed and this farm girl went to the big city to attend an arts college where I attained a bachelors in Illustration and Creative Writing. Following that was a brief stint in teaching where I learned just how flawed the education system is and that loving what you do is not justification for literal abuse from that system. 

For many years I worked freelance as an artist and a writer dabbling in everything from writing smut fiction, painting portraits, and even being a seamstress. Then 2020 happened, and like everyone else, life turned upside down. The client list for small-time freelance work dried up and I was forced to enter back into mainstream industry to keep myself afloat. After various jobs, another brief stint in teaching, and settling into a part time gig at a local thrift store (where *fun fact* I made more than I did as a teacher), I was forced to make some considerations about where my life was headed. 

What do I really want to do with my life? 

For a while I had been working on a character for my local renaissance festival where I did traditional paper making and that of course lead directly to bookbinding as well. It was a skill I had dabbled with off and on in the past and had always enjoyed. It turned out everyone else enjoyed it as well. The character was a hit and I firmly resolved that I wanted to do more of the character and also just the work, making the paper. 

Around this time my significant other came to me with an interesting request. He had been doing some research following post-pandemic scares about food shortages and whatnots. We already had a garden, because I enjoy the hobby, but he wanted my opinion on raising rabbits, for meat. 

Remember that farm girl? And the farm where grandpa raised rabbits? 

Of course my answer was “yes.” Within the month we had cages set up and our first breeding pair. By the end of the year we had our first litters and a registered rabbitry with the ARBA. We started an instagram, a tiktok, and settled on the name “Paper Rabbits.” 

A little over year later I’m here starting a blog because we have come to the conclusion that we would eventually like to grow Paper Rabbits into a fully functioning business. How do we plan to achieve that? I don’t know either. I’m just the rabbit lady…who also makes books.