Furry friend

The boys and I spent the month of May in Colorado with my in-laws. When we returned home, my father-in-law parked their van in the neighbor's carport, no one lived there at the time. While they were here, the base lawn care service came by to mow the vacant home's yard. They were unable to mow the back yard because of my in-laws being parked there. So, my father-in-law mowed it. In the midst of mowing, he comes back to the house and tells my mother-in-law and me that we have to come see something. The grass had been pretty tall and Randy uncovered a nest of some sort of rodent. We could not tell what they were, but felt terrible for disturbing their nest. So, Becky, my sweet, farm-girl mother-in-law, thought we needed to bring them in. I was apprehensive. They were leaving in the morning and I had no desire to care for 3-4 little rodents. We collected a box and several towels and Becky took them out of the hole. Come to find out there were 7 babies. We went to Wal-mart to get some kitty milk for them and ran into a lady that is a vet-tech. She said they were probably baby bunnies and they had little to no chance of surviving in captivity. That even with the very best care, something could startle them and they would die. She also said that the mother bunny only comes back at night to feed them. So, we headed home with our kitty milk and attempted to feed the bunnies. In the morning, we put them back in their hole and laid sticks across the top to see if there was any action from the mama. Becky and I had many conversations about the bunnies. I think she thought I was just going to let them die. While I did not want to care for them, I could at least check on them. After a few days their eyes opened and I could tell they were getting fatter. It seemed that we did not bother the mama and she was still coming back to feed them. After a couple of weeks the nest was finally empty! I was so happy about this. I figured either a snake at them or they hopped away. Either way, I did not have to worry about them any more. 

We have had a few bunny sightings since then. Occasionally we'll see one dart off out of the back yard at night or something like that. Well, a little while ago I was sprinkling some old produce in my flower beds when a little cotton tale came shooting out from under a dead azalea. This happened right as my neighbor said hello, so I was quite startled! It was fun to see the little bunny though and think that possibly it was one that we looked after in June.