She Found the Baby Bunnies

…not alive. This was a remarkably calm moment for my fantasy author. She was raking the front yard Sunday and had disturbed one of the bunnies (there's got to be another word for these creatures because I feel like little Kaylin calling them…rabbits?). She had disturbed one of the young rabbits when she gathered up a pile of grass clippings it was hiding under. The things truly are cute, I have to admit. It hopped over to hide next to her foot since she'd just removed its cover. How much intelligence can these things have?

She was thrilled to see it out frolicking, no longer confined to its nest, and she wondered where its sibling was. Well…that's where our story turns quite sad. I won't give details, but I'm wondering at her level of sanity. I mean, when something as cute and pathetic as a baby bunny (two of them, actually) is lying dead next to its nest, you would expect Sandy to crumble. I figured the day was shot at that point. Let's take her back in the house and deal with this emotional turmoil. For some reason neither of us has figured out yet, she just went around back, told the black snake that lives back there to slither aside because she needed the shovel, and buried the poor little things down by the driveway.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is now a dish of water and mound of vegetarian fare by a make-shift, baby-bunny-sized lean-to in the bushes by the front porch. The remaining rabbit will live like a king until the banks kick Sandy out of this place. But she's got a plan to wean the creature toward this wildlife mecca on the property next door. It shouldn't be difficult. (And, yes, she informed the snake out back that he is to leave the rabbit alone or there'll be a manic-depressive woman with a shovel in his future. I'm pretty sure I understand all of that.)

I guess that's something you have to deal with when you live in a swamp in Southwest Florida. Life and death. There are many species out here that Sandy Lender enjoys watching. Some shiny blue-and-black skink visits the back porch to sun itself in the late afternoons. Egrets and herons visit her pond in the back yard (and vultures have been known to watch her back there as well, which she finds disturbing on a variety of levels). A juvenile alligator lived in the culvert down at the end of the driveway last summer, but he left when that dried up. I understand completely why she wanted to live here, why she wanted this to be the home where she finally found stability. What a shame that the idiot she supported through school wasn't interested in helping her keep it…

Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, rabbits, swamp, Southwest Florida, black snake, wildlife, skink, egret, heron, alligator