A Hare raising tale....

As promised.... I thought it would be fun to chat about rabbits. (well, for me anyway...ha ha ) I notice everyone in Europe refers to "hares"... Here in New England we do have a Snow Shoe Hare (though i've never seen one in person, more a northern New England thing I guess?)... but down here, we have your basic Cottontail Rabbit... small and without the lanky legs; much more abundant in our area.  We have a resident one who has been frequenting our yard since the spring... I suspect he or she probably knows what became of my strawberries.... 

I was told recently by a lovely friend, that I am "prone to rabbits".  I never really thought about it like that... but I suppose perhaps I am. It looks like this started young, and has continued...

In the photo below, I am with my first rabbit, Hoppity.   I was happy to find that my Mother had provided some information on the back of the photo. 

Snappy pants huh?
 I wonder if my finger is in his cage and if he bit it?

Yeah  to people who take the time to write on photos so you know what's going on many years later!

Just a guess, but I"m thinking that this book (yes, I still have my childhood books..) is where the inspiration came from for the name...  Apparently 3 years olds don't go for orginality. :)))

Hoppity, from what i recall didn't like being captured and put back in his cage... why would he I suppose... We had him for many years....and i think he started to think of it like game of keep away.  Hiding in the rhubarb, and circling the shed, just out of reach waiting to see which way she was coming from next.  I wonder if she still has scars from the scratches once she got hold of  him....

Here we are gardening together.....

These are amoung my favorite things...
The one on the left is of course brandy new to the rabbit fleet, he has no name yet.
Beside him is "blue bunny" ~ found all alone on the floor at the "Bargineer" (a discount store back in the 1970's)  when I was probably a 5, 6, 7 ?  He's been with me a long time....
Next we have "Pewter Rabbit"....  he was purchased from the Thornton Burgess Museum in Sandwich, MA ...  he came along a few years after Blue Bunny.
and beside him is "Peter". He is from the National Trust shop at Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's house in England.  He is fairly new in the scheme of things, 1998 ~ but treasured none the less. :))))

And this is from this summer.  My beautiful sweet Sophie.
I am reading about Beatrix Potter, and as you can see she is enthralled with the story.
(the cage and the fencing save the chasing and the scratching...:))))

Of course we have lots of other creatures now... including a new mouse named Finnigan O'Squeak. (I am a bit prone to mice also... but that's a story for some other day....)

There is just something about the rabbits I guess.

  They inspire art in the form of drawings as well as clay... and now in silver....

We certainly don't need any more rabbits, or any more anything for that matter... but I still look every year in the 4-H tent at the Common Ground Fair; just in case there is a big, soft golden colored rabbit there...

a modern day Hoppity perhaps?