Repotting some root-bound plants, I was sitting in my back yard when he hopped up to within three feet of me. “You should be afraid of me” I said, and the baby bunny just sat there looking at me with the curiosity of innocence and unknowing that the newborn of all species possess. I don’t think that he (or she… I’m not really sure how to tell from a distance) was more than four inches or so long from the tip of its nose to the tip of its cottontail.
We didn’t commune together for a very long time, though for that short period we were fully engaged in visually examining each other. I must have been a new phenomenon for it to behold. I on the other hand was reluctant to play Mr. McGregor to his Peter Rabbit.
“Look little rab,” I said, “please don’t eat my lettuce.”
My bunny friend just looked at me, probably hearing the sound of human speech for the first time in its life.
Presently it unhurriedly hopped off through the stairs and under our deck off the back of the house, leaving me to digest our brief but unusual encounter.
I hope the little fellow goes on to a fully productive and fulfilling life as lives in his species are won’t to go. Though, especially given his naiveté, I wouldn’t be surprised if his life were shortened at the claws of a cat, a hawk, or even a fox in our built up suburban neighborhood. I hope he stays out of the street though; that might be his greatest peril.
He and I both share the environment we inhabit together. I did discover a rabbit hole on my front lawn last year, maybe the entrance to his own den, and felt then that its presence was no less entitled to be there than the house my wife and I live in.
Though I’m apparently higher on the food chain, and as long as we can show some respect for each other’s space, I suppose we can live together, the little rab and me.
I did, however, move most of the pots of lettuce off the ground and onto a table.