A Rabbit Tale

There has always been evidence of resident rabbits in our yard. In summer, they make their home under the two giant pines in the front of our house and come out to nibble at the tulips and whatever else strikes their fancy. In winter, they make their home under our back deck, but until this winter we have rarely seen them -- only a flash or a glimpse here and there. Then, last year, our children gave us a bird feeder for our anniversary. We hung it so that we could watch the birds from our breakfast table. This proved to be quite entertaining since we were housebound due to COVID restrictions. The birds have been coming in droves this winter, mostly sparrows and chickadees. 

Then, one day, a rabbit joined the birds. I thought it was a dog at first, because it was so big. It sniffed around in the snow picking up whatever seeds the birds had dropped.

One morning, instead of throwing my vegetable peels into the compost, I decided to toss them onto the deck to see if the rabbit would eat them. They were gone in no time. I put them right in front of the patio door and he sat there and munched away happily, completely oblivious of us watching him. He doesn't eat everything, but he loves carrot peels and his favorite is banana peels. I thought of all the frozen bananas we have that are not being used because guests are forbidden and so are church potlucks. I might just put them out for the rabbit. But, will he get too comfortable around our house and wreak havoc in spring and summer when I put out my plants? We'll have to wait and see!

                              

It didn't take long and there were two rabbits on our deck. We assume the second one is his mate.

Sometimes he does not treat her very well and she has to go down and forage for her own food in the yard below!

After friend rabbit has eaten his fill, he often picks a sunny spot under our composter and goes to sleep!

When I first had the idea of writing a blog post about our resident rabbits, I wondered if anyone would even care to read about  rabbits. Mostly they are just considered to be annoying garden pests, but they have kept us entertained and happy during this time of isolation and feeling housebound. I wanted to share that. 

 Something  about our rabbit tweaked a memory.  I recalled a postcard with a picture of a rabbit that had impressed me as a child. I googled it and there it was! 

The rabbit on the postcard is almost identical to our rabbit except for the long ears! (This makes it a hare, not a rabbit.)

Hardy and I are actually in prestigious company spending time watching our rabbits. Albrecht Dürer, German artist, printmaker and theorist of the German Renaissance (1471-1528), must have done so as well: He painted the above picture in 1502, long before the invention of the camera! You can see his unique signature and date of the painting just below the rabbit.  Dürer had to work from real life! I wonder how much time he spent painting the hare, never mind the self-portrait below!

Self-portrait of Dürer at age 26

Another person fascinated by rabbits and famous for her rabbit stories is Beatrix Potter (1866-1943). She  wrote and illustrated thirty books. Interestingly enough, she began writing them as letters, illustrating them and sending them to the children of her governess. The governess is the one who suggested the letters might make good children's books.

While thinking about rabbits, I remembered a German children's book my grandmother gave us about rabbits going to school. I loved that book and wished I still had it so I could look at it once more.
On a whim I googled the title and to my amazement, it is available from Amazon!

In 1924, Albert Sixtus got the idea for the book while playing in the garden with his son who was about to start school. School began at Eastertime so it made perfect sense to write a book about what it's like to go to school and combine it with a bunny and an Easter theme.
Sixtus wrote the book just after WW1 when life in Germany was bleak. Ninety-five years later this book is still popular in Germany. For Easter in 2019 a special anniversary edition was published. It is also available in English. I thought of purchasing it for my grandchildren, but alas, they have outgrown books like this! The youngest turned 11 in November and we missed a whole year of his childhood because of COVID. [On second thought, this book might no longer be politically correct. The cover depicts a teacher asserting his authority, which was fine in 1924 but would probably need to be portrayed differently today.]

Do you recall favorite books about animals from your childhood? What emotions did they evoke in you?