Bunny Love

We are a bunny family. Some families have dogs and cats for pets, we have dogs and cats and bunnies. At one point, after two unexpected (really?) litters of baby bunnies we had fifteen of them. Months and many craigslist ads later we are down to our four standby rabbit friends, Wolf, CT (Cottontail), Hop, and Buttercup.

I don't think often about why we are a bunny family, but lately I had reason to be reminded of all the bunny stories we have enjoyed through the years. First of all, when my eldest child was quite young she was given a green plush rabbit for a toy, which became named Eliezer. I used to make up bedtime stories for my young daughter about a little girl meeting a rabbit named Eliezer in the back yard, and the adventures they would have. Then, of course, there were all the Easter bunnies and Easter bunny stories: the rabbit series by Alan Barker which is now out of print, the book Bunny and Me, featuring a lovely baby in fabulous handknits playing with a lop (what could be better?) and Hop!, a board book featuring, you guessed it: rabbits.

In addition to all the picture books, of course, contributing to our bunny mania may be the tiny fact that as soon as my daughter could read I began shoving my beloved copy of Watership Down at her. She read through it twice before she was ten, and I'm sure she'll revisit it at some point later on down the road. She may not be as much into picture books as she once was, but we're still reading them out loud to her siblings. There's not much better than a good bunny story. Even if it does result in a houseful of rabbits.

Garden Update

I am still not sure whether I am happy to be able to do more work in the garden this year or dismayed at all the heavy labor that entails. Earlier this year I read (quite complacently, I admit) the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and smiled over her descriptions of working all day and falling down exhausted in the evening. I am finding myself falling-over-exhausted over doing just several hours of heavy gardening. By "heavy gardening" I mean, of course not the genteel and ladylike planting of seeds or watering with a hose or even a watering can, but the kind of digging and soil turning and slogging that leaves your muscles shaking and your head aching.

End result: between the efforts of myself and one helpful child I doubled the length of one bed (soil turned), started breaking the clods of soil with a hoe and raked some of the weeds out. I also planted seven rose bushes in the front of the house, and seeded the bare ground in the front that does get some sun with wildflower seeds. Our goal is to eliminate mowing in the front and have a plethora of decorative plants and flowers. Between the huge beech tree that dominates the front yard and the apple trees we put in a couple of years ago a lot of that is done. Hopefully these roses will help to beautify the front as well.