The necessity of fear

 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 to communicate the necessity of fear. We will teach them this because they are outside civilization. Even though they desire a routine and a safe place, we cannot provide it for them. Even though we can communicate, there are limits to what we can say to them and what we can do for them.

I regret most of all that I was never able to tell Rusty that it could use our front lawn.