Belly to the Rain Kids!

Please enjoy this guest post from my dear friend and poet Terre Compton.

To my surprise and joy, a baby bunny cautiously roamed our yard the first week we moved into this house. He/she appeared at various times under the hedge in front or boldly in the open grass in the back.

It’s February. Cold and windy. There are now two full grown rabbits. The green of August is brown. I think it must be miserable for rabbits in Cheyenne in winter. I feed them collard ribs, but they don’t take to them. I send Bob to the back to offer carrots.

It’s early dawn and Bob calls me to the kitchen window. “Come see how one rabbit is eating that carrot!” We both stare for at least 5 minutes, and I am pleased. I return to the window in 10 minutes when I am more fully awake to watch the rabbit, but the rabbit is so still and unmoving I panic that I have killed it with the carrot. I stare and stare and stare. It does not move.

Turns out I am looking at one of Fanny’s throw toys that has an orange ball in the center of matted grey rope.

I tell Bob, ‘We are looking at a throw toy.’ I shake with laughter.

My friend Chelo’s New Year’s resolution is to be more like her puppy Buster who is ‘open to what the world showers down on him’. Yup Chelo. Me too. But. I am no puppy. I am a 72-year-old with poor eyesight who thinks a play toy is a rabbit eating a carrot.

Embrace what I have!!!!