Who Says Rabbits in the Garden are a Bad Thing?

In previous posts, I've told y'all about my garden and my chickens and my ducks and my goats. I've talked about the dogs and the cat, the wildlife and the various and sundry insects. I've waxed rhapsodic about almost every facet of the things I take care of up here on the ridge. One thing I've neglected to discuss however, is our rabbits. Yep. We raise rabbits. And we have, at least in my opinion, a lot of 'em. At present we're up to about 20...but that number will soon be dwindling, if you get my drift.

So, we've got these rabbits, right? And they're all cute and fuzzy and totally squeezable. I dig my rabbits. And these rabbits, as conventional wisdom dictates, all live in cages. They are safely and securely housed down at the bottom of the yard. They get garden scraps and rabbit food and occasional goodies. Two weekends ago, B and I had the brilliant idea to set up something of a...play pen of sorts. Some sort of enclosure with an open bottom so a few buns at a time could pretend that they were living the good life and much on real, live grass.

We took that ball and ran with it. And it worked! We had four juvenile buns in this set-up. We moved it around from place to place in the yard and let them go to town. All was well. Until...

dun dun dun!!!!!

One of them escaped. It didn't dig out. It leapt OVER. B was feeding them and this daredevil bun heaved himself over the three foot tall wall of the pen. The chase was on. B grabbed his handy-dandy net and we went on a rabbit catchin' mission. And we actually succeeded! We totally caught that little rogue bun. We put him right back in with his brethren and went about our business. Again, all was well for a few days. Then, of course, same bun was out hop, hop, hopping along, not a care in the world, just as white as white can be (with occasional spots) right out in the open in front of God, owls, hawks, dogs, cat, and everyone.

This time we were not as deft in our apprehension of said rogue bun. This time the wily little critter eluded us.

So, now, now we have a yard bunny. His name is Frank.

I know. I can't even count the number of ways this is a bad idea. Thankfully, Frank has not yet discovered the bounty that awaits him in my garden. Frank thinks he's invincible however. He scoots around all over the place, oblivious. Methinks Frank will come to a bitter end very soon. My dogs have already seen him and were trembling with want.

He's really stinking cute though. I'd never considered what a domestic bunny would do if let loose on the world. He's a riot. AND!! I think he has a girlfriend. Bunny love is definitely in the air. She's a little, wild thing. Petite and brown. Just Frank's type. She spends her days under the cover of the woods near the caged rabbits. Frank just runs around willy-nilly. When he goes to visit his captive compatriots, he and his little lady frolic and hop and hop and frolic all about. She's definitely smarter than him, though. I think he's showing off for her.

So, without further ado, I give you...

*drumroll*

Frank, the yard bunny!!








Hopefully I'll be able to capture some of his more endearing, bunny frolic moments to share soon.
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On a completely unrelated note, welcome to all the folks who found via Grit! And thanks to Grit for giving me one more place to put my drivel!