The Bunnies We Know

 Now that Rusty's grown up, we don't see him so often, but we saw him a few days ago and were delighted. I saw a bunny and I said "hi bunny" and it bounded towards me. When Melissa came it, it positioned itself farther from me and closer to Melissa, which seems very much like Rusty. Here is a photo that Melissa took. We recently learned that cottontails have whiter fur in winter, so this is the start of the change to winter fur. Rusty's winter pelt

 We have not seen bunnies for over a week now. I went for a walk at night a few days ago, and a bunny saw me and ran away. That might have been Rusty, but of course it was dark and hard to see.  Tonight I made up a short rhyme or song: We think about you every day We wish we knew you were okay Rusty, Rusty, Rusty, Rusty Bunny  

 "Rabbits hold a grudge," sources say. Rusty came up to Melissa today to say hello when she saw it and said, "hello there!" We have not seen Rusty for two weeks (which is a long time in a rabbit's life). Then when I said hi to Rusty, it ran away, because of the time in August when I spritzed it  so that I could water the lawn. Rusty sticks to the shaded lawn because it is still obeying what it sees as me telling it to get off the lawn (and also to stay away from the raised beds).  Rabbits are smart!  And I am happy that Rusty is alive.

 A new bunny has appeared. Melissa calls it "Progeny." It's young but may have the coloring or Brindle and Rusty. I talked quietly to it for about 20 minutes and Melissa photographed it for 10 minutes. Then it hopped away. The rabbit pet videos say that your bunny will let you know when it has had enough, and that you should respect that. So we did respect it. We hope to see it tomorrow.

 We have not seen the bunnies we know for several days now. We have not seen any bunnies at all. We worry that they have moved away or been killed, perhaps by a hawk , or by a stray cat. There may not be many posts on this blog for a time. I think that if, next year, we have a chance to meet new wild bunnies, we will have to teach them fear. I saw a video in which a person who befriended a bunny is telling it to run from a hawk . But you have to use bunny language, not human language. The person should point their nose at the sky and stamp the ground in a three beat rhythm: thump-thump-thump thump-thump-thump. I do not know whether we will feed them, although people do . Note that the bunny in the feeding video mirrors the human's emotions -- calm when the human is calm, and upset when the human gets upset because of a strange noise in their air conditioner. We still dream of seeing Rusty or Daily again later this year.  But if we get to know bunnies next year, we will be sure...