Babies Everywhere!

This time, they are not the human variety!!! About six weeks ago, we noticed that there was a hole in our front garden bed. Every time we would fill it up, the hole would come back. We assumed it was a small animal of some kind. With the pregnancy so close to ending, we just kind of forgot about dealing with it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that a bunny was sitting in our flower bed...on the hole. We began to think that we had found our hole-digger and we were thinking that there would be babies soon.

Sure enough, when she hopped off the hole, there was four or five little babies. They were tiny...like an inch long, with no hair. They were just rooting around for all it was worth trying to get more milk from their Momma. We filed the information away and went about our business.

Well, last night, Kelly needed to mow the lawn. She was going kind of quickly, because it was hot and she wanted to get it done. She mowed over a hole and out popped this little tiny animal. It was hopping funny and she was convinced that she had mortally wounded the animal.

She came running into the house and in the most distressed voice I've ever heard said "Honey, I hit a chipmunk. Help!". Well, I was holding and feeding Bailey at the time, so she had to come stay with her. I went outside to investigate, asking myself in my head "what the hell am I supposed to do???" I went out and found the little animal. It was sitting in the grass. I didn't see any blood. The animal wasn't thrashing around and wasn't panting (a sure sign of pain). In fact, it was just sitting there. I wondered if it was already dead. I took a closer look and realized that this was not a chipmunk. It was one of our baby bunnies!!!!!!!!

So, I rushed into the garage and got one of the spare towels we keep there. My intention was to check out the bunny and see how/if it was hurt. If it was suffering, I was going to figure out how to put it out of it's misery. (GROSS). I came back and gently tried to pick the little bunny up with a wash cloth. I was being very gentle, because I didn't want to hurt it more if indeed it was hurt. By this time, Kelly had come back outside holding a screaming Bailey (we had dropped her bottle in all the fuss). The second time I reached down for the bunny, it hopped away quite rapidly. I was able to see as it moved that there was no major blood anywhere and the bunny was hopping just fine. It looked like the only injury the bunny sustained was a little nick to its ear when the blades went over the hole.

Thank God. The bunny hung out on our front walk and in the flower bed for a while and then eventually went back to the hole. My distraught wife walked our front yard slowly looking for signs of any other bunny. Finding none, she finished mowing the yard.

Seems like we'll have to be really careful from now on! Here are a couple of really cute pictures of the bunny!