Bunny Adventures

Good morning, everyone.

I hope you're having a great week, or if not, I at least hope it goes by quickly to get to the weekend.

Well, we had an interesting "bunny adventure" last night. Yesterday our next door neighbors had a service come and mow their lawn for them. And this isn't said in a bad way, but some of the grass on the side of their house had grown pretty tall (and I promise, you should have seen ours before we mowed on Monday night).

Anyway, while the guy was mowing, he uncovered a nest of baby rabbits.

The neighbors found it when they came home from work last night and showed it to our sons, who thought it was one of the coolest things they'd ever seen.

So then we showed it to the other little boy who lives on the other side of us, who thought it was awesome, too.

And I have to say, those little bunnies were SOOOOOO cute. There were at least 4-5 of them snuggled down in this hole, all fuzzy and sweet. Too cute!

Anyway, by this point the nest, which was covered with a HUGE wad of fuzzy, fluffy shedded fur, had been disturbed at least 3, if not 4, times. So being the worry-wart that I am, I began to wonder if the mama rabbit would come back if she smelled so many human scents around her hiding place.

And as a disclaimer, no, I am not an expert (or even a novice) at animal behavior. I don't know if rabbits are scared off by scents, sights, sounds; one or the other of these; or a combination of the three.

So as we all sat outside during the evening, the kids playing on the trampoline, and the adults sat on the patio chairs, a little rabbit appeared near our back fence and started making its way across the yard. We all became convinced this must be the mama coming back to feed her babies, and waited to see if she would go to them.

Unfortunately, another back neighbors' dog caught sight of the rabbit, charged to the fence, and scared the rabbit back into hiding.

This happened three times before the dog finally went in for the night.

By this time I was beginning to wonder if the rabbit would ever get across the yard, but finally she came back out. Most of our family had given up on the Great Rabbit Watch, but Twin A stayed with me the whole time to make sure that mama found her babies.

Only, the rabbit didn't go for the nest. She hopped across the yard, and then headed for a field between two other houses.

This definitely worried Twin A, and me, too. Where was she going? Was she coming back? Would she find the babies? What would happen to the babies if she didn't come back? My son hammered me with questions, and I answered the best I could.

Then we went in for the night.

My son sat at the window in his room, watching the spot where he thought the nest was (by this time it was dark outside so he coudn't see anything), and waited for the mama to come back.

So then I called my mom to see if she knew anything about the habits of rabbits, and finally did an internet search to find out what to do.

A simple and brilliant plan was then formed, which my son wholeheartedly concurred with: place two small sticks over the fur covering the nest. If the sticks had been moved in the morning, we would know the mama had been back to feed her babies. If the sticks were still there, we'd need to take the babies to the vet because the mama had probably abandonded them.

Great plan.

And I am proud to report that as of this morning, the sticks were moved off the cover. YAY!

I was seriously concerned about this. Mostly because I just couldn't stand to let the poor little things starve to death, but also because my son was sooooooo concerned for their well being, too. He has such a tender heart, and I would have been forced to lie to him about what happened to the bunnies before I told him they had died.

But fortunately that didn't happen, and the baby bunnies are just fine.

And so goes another day in our lives.

The crazy things that get us all in a bother. Oh, well.

Later.