📅 Saturday, 9 May 2026 · No. 52

The Grooming Pile: Everybody Gets Served Tonight

💤 Behavior Diaries · ✎ 4 min · by Azmi in Meknes

Azmi's note My personal log from Meknes, not vet advice. Just what I did and saw tonight.

Caught the whole fluffle in a grooming pile tonight, taking turns like a tiny spa. Ears, foreheads, cheeks, everyone gets served and everyone serves. Tonight’s post is the spa’s evening program: the treatment order, the practitioners, the rotation chart, and the house rules of the pile. Personal joy log, not behavior advice, group dynamics differ everywhere; anything forced gets no entry here. Group grooming days are my favourite diary pages. Wholesome does not cover it.

Tonight’s program: order of service

19:42 the pile forms: spotted one arrives first and claims center (seniority recognized). 19:45 white crew member one begins ears, slow strokes down the spotted one’s ears while she melts lower. 19:52 rotation: spotted one returns service on crew member one’s forehead. 20:00 crew member two joins, cheek station opens. 20:10 freckles arrives last, receives full polish from all three, contributes ear-tips. 20:25 pile settles into a single breathing mound, services complete. Who started, who got the most licks, logged each pile night: tonight’s count puts spotted one top with 12 minutes received, freckles second with 9, crew members 6 each given more than taken. The spotted one getting polished by the white crew may be the month’s best sight: freckles happy to be served, eyes closed, utterly gone.

Rotation chart and pile etiquette

Maybe they are cleaning spots off, maybe it is just love, the diary records services, not motives. Rotation pattern across six pile nights: the starter varies (spotted 3, crew-one 2, freckles 1), the finisher is always freckles (youngest, most to learn, most polish received). Service areas ranked by frequency: forehead first, ears second, cheeks third, chins never (too ticklish, universal veto). Anybody left out gets extra pets from me, the rule has triggered twice, both times for crew member two who loafs at the edge; my pets are consolation, not substitution, and he knows the difference (returns to the pile after, always). Photo from above, no flash, no noise: the overhead shot shows the pile as a single shape with ears like sprouts. Session rule: I shoot once from the doorway and withdraw, piles dissolve under attention the way dreams do under alarms.

Pile season and records

Either way the pile grows nightly, frequency rising with spring: March 2 piles, April 6, May already 5 by mid-month. Conditions that predict piles in my notes: calm weather, shared hay pile at 19:00, all residents flop-proximate by 19:30. Anti-pile conditions: windy evenings (separate corners), guest nights (separate audiences), post-vet days (solitude respected). Records board: longest pile 48 minutes (rainy Thursday, all four, barely moved), most participants 4 of 4 residents (tonight makes the fifth full house), shortest 6 minutes (interrupted by my sneeze, logged as staff error). Group grooming days are my favourite diary pages because they photograph like harmony and read like it too: everybody gets served tonight, everybody serves, the pile breathes as one. Wholesome does not cover it, but the log tries nightly anyway.

Pile science: conditions and measurements

pile forecasting, such as it is: shared 19:00 hay pile plus flop-proximity by 19:30 predicts piles 8 nights of 10 in my rows. Pile geometry measured once (for science): four residents, roughly 60 cm across, ears at four compass points. Breathing synchrony observed twice, the mound visibly rising as one, filed as the pile’s finest moments. Pile etiquette for the photographer: one doorway shot, no flash, withdraw immediately; second shots dissolve piles 3 of 4 attempts (documented cost of greed). Pile leftovers: fur tumbleweeds collected next morning, largest like a small cloud, saved once then composted (sentiment has limits). The pile is the diary’s proof that the household works, four animals choosing contact nightly, no management required. Program repeats; audience of one; reviews five stars.

Tonight’s pile report, filed warm: full house again, spotted center, freckles finished, crew steady. Duration 35 minutes, dissolution natural (one by one to water, no alarm). Season total: 11 piles and counting, every one logged with starter and counts. The spa runs nightly with no booking system, no fees, and perfect attendance. Wholesome remains uncovered by any word I own, the diary keeps trying: mound, breathing, ears, love. Everybody served, everybody serves, everybody stays. Pile on.

Pile memoirs from the month: the rainy-Thursday 48-minute mound (all four, barely breathing separately, the record), the sneeze-dissolved pile (staff error, apologies rendered in parsley), the first freckles-finished pile (graduation watched proudly). Each memoir one line in the margin, stars where deserved. The pile diary within the diary grows its own lore: center belongs to spotted by custom, finishing rights to freckles by youth, steadiness to the crew by temperament. Customs unspoken, kept perfectly. New residents learn pile manners by immersion, freckles arrived awkward, now finishes. The spa trains its own staff.

Spa motto, stitched mentally: everybody in, everybody polished, everybody home. Tonight’s shift ends as all shifts end, mound dissolving to water bowls, then beds. Closed.

🐰

Written by Azmi

I track my rabbits' diet, weight and naps to see what works. Photos are mine, mess included. Say hi on the contact page.

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