Stand Behind Line

Nature is so profligate. There is a great New Yorker magazine cover that shows an avatar of Spring; she is plump, rosy, happy, and white robed - with several children clambering over her - sitting on a park bench alongside a brittle, clad in black, and nervous woman clutching her briefcase.

Anyway.

Nature is so profligate. There is this need for excess. Millions of seeds mature with the hope that one or two will survive and grow. Some of them may survive to adulthood and in turn, have the opportunity to reproduce.

All of this to remind me of the uncertainty of bunny life. And life in general.

Wednesday is thriving, as is Floppy, his mom. Most afternoons, I can see three or four white baby bunnies in the front and/or back yard. There are two white ones that exhibit Lionhead features. Stubby and Dickie live on!

But I found the cute, plain brown baby dead this afternoon. I had seen him earlier today, lounging in the sun, apparently okay. When I got home from town errands, I found him dead, but not stiff, in the back yard enclosure. His little belly was squishy and watery, so I must assume that there was some intestinal problem.

Sad.

But I have been "raising" bunnies for just long enough to accept that this sort of shit happens. All the time.

Lots of babies are made, so that a few can survive to reproduce. It is nothing new. Even the "cute" and "pretty" ones don't always make it. Bunnies are prey animals and are inherently vulnerable. I am slow to understand this, but I am getting it.

I had an email today from Helena Handbasket. A friend of hers had adopted a bunny, a dwarf hotot, and guess what? She is allergic! As I am the Mother Theresa of disenfranchised bunnies, I have been asked if maybe I would take in the orphan.

Ya win some, ya lose some.