I just thought I’d share that I was just outside with the kids watching four tiny little baby White-tailed Jack Rabbits running around on our front lawn. Momma had them under our pine tree cluster. I thought something was up, because she’s been going in and out of the tree for the last little while, and she usually only goes under there during bad weather.

My research shows they are probably only a few weeks old, as they are precocial (they have their eyes open and are fully furred at birth and soon begin to move around.)

In summer, their coat is a grizzled brownish grey. In winter, the coat changes to pure white, except for black-tipped ears. They are actually a hare … but are called White-tailed Jack Rabbits because, well you know, just because.

They are SO CUTE … smaller than your fist, and running around and jumping on each other.

Soon they will grow up and join the rest of the herd that occupies our yard, street, and neighborhood.

I WANT TO HUG THEM!

(But I won’t, they need to stay wild. And besides, Momma would probably rip my throat out like the Monty Python rabbit with her sharp, pointy teeth and huge hind legs!)

http://www.arkive.org/white-tailed-jackrabbit/lepus-townsendii/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_jackrabbit

I just had to share. Please don't eat my widdle bunnies Mr. Owl!

Thank you for this today, torturednevermo...

Very muchly appreciated (and appreciated more than you could imagine).

:)

Glad my bunnies gave you a needed grin. :)

Thank you!

Two days ago property management pulled out the full grown cotton-tail-nest-protecting junipers at work. So, no funny baby bunnies to watch this spring. <angry face>

Yes, starting a few years ago, all my neighbors de-limbed their spruce and pine trees from the bottom up to about six feet. It started with one guy doing it, then everybody on the street copied him for whatever social reason people do that copy each other thing. Now my pine trees and one other neighbor up the block are the only yards where the wild hares have a place to go in a blizzard, or to have their babies.

If you look on the internet, you’ll see lot’s of advice against cutting off the lower branches of spruce and pine trees like that. It really stresses the tree, and leaves it vulnerable to insect and fungus invasion, among other problems created when cutting the lower branches off. And guess what, the grass still doesn’t grow under the tree anyway. Also, the tree feeds itself with the decaying needles that are supposed to gather under the tree.

All the little nature spirits love our yard and come to hang out here. I keep it tidy, but still quite natural. It’s not, as my wife and I chuckle, a Martha Stewart yard … groan!

No rabbits were injured in this filming.

This dude is just plain crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPRGP_U3LXw

Interesting video. I trapped an Australian guy once. He lived in the next unit to us for a short time. He was loud, obnoxious, and did a lot of damage to the property and yard. He was kind of a bully too, as well as worked here illegally on a visitor’s visa. He didn’t pay any taxes on the job he was taking away from a local, and liked to brag about that a lot.

Every time he broke another window, or got angry and kicked another picket out of the fence, he would sheepishly ask me if I thought the landlord would get upset with him over it. I always said. ‘no way, the guys very laid back, and never comes around here anyway as long as you pay your rent on time.’

Well, one day the landlord did come by, which I knew he would, and got very irate at the guy, which I knew he would, and evicted him, which I knew he would. So yes, I trapped an Australian guy once … and I didn’t even need snakes or a net to do it.