A Bunny Named Second Chance

There are plenty of animals in the garden who are our friends. Bumblebees buzz from flowering beans to zucchinis and cucumber, bringing their fairy dust coating of pollen with them, earthworms munch on the compost we turned in this spring, transforming it into nutritious castings. Momma kildeer and her fuzzy little chicks scuttle from row to row, eating bugs and grubs and singing their warning calls when they see us.

These species and many more are garden helpers, but sometimes the garden is visited by wildlife that is anything but helpful. Voles eat three times their weight every day, ground squirrels eat the roots of plants, deer athletically jump fences to munch away, and then there are the rabbits.

In 2020, a virus quickly spread through the local rabbit population, and we went from having a plethora of hoppers to none in a matter of a few weeks. We’d find rabbits convulsing in the ditch (we gave them a lot of personal space and kept the dogs away), and the accustomed site of seeing snowshoe hares hanging out by Farmstead Creamery’s back porch vanished. For a few years, no rabbits were to be seen.

That changed this spring, as first one, then two, then three, then more rabbits began returning to the farm. Somewhere, some rabbits must have survived the virus, repopulating the area. They’re back to their favorite haunts—the chokecherry bushes beside the barnyard, the tag alder thicket by the lane, the lawn near the back door of the creamery. With the return of adult rabbits, it was inevitable that little rabbits would ensue.

A few days ago, I was picking zucchini when out of the prickly bushes popped a baby rabbit, about the size of a softball. Its eyes were huge, its ears tiny and quivering. I tried to reach for it, but the little furball managed to stay just out of reach. If someone didn’t know I was chasing a rabbit, it would have looked like I was either playing some kind of a strange game or something was really wrong with me. Needless to say, my attempts were thwarted, and the bunny got away.

“We have a problem in the garden,” I announced at breakfast. “We have a baby bunny in the garden.” [Insert sounds of horror here.]

We vacillated whether we should let Finlee, our herding dog, into the garden to catch the rabbit, but he has a habit of tearing through the plants when he’s on the chase. He might cause more harm than the rabbit! Live trap? What would a baby bunny like that he couldn’t already find in the garden?

Two mornings later, I was harvesting again in the garden and reached into the cucumber vines to pick a spiky fruit when out popped the little bunny again, big eyes and tiny ears and all. Keeping my eye on the furball, I hollered, “Help, help, rabbit in the garden!” It was morning chore time, and everyone was out and about in the barnyard.

We made our plan, getting on either side of the zucchini row in which the bunny had decided to try to hide again, sneaking up quietly. It was almost like a game of packman, where we were the ghosts chasing the little muncher as it ducked from row to row, then hopped down a lane, then side-stepped.

“Now it’s over here!” I called as we scuttled and scurried. Eventually, the bunny buried itself between two zucchini bushes, trying to keep a low profile. I was coming up from behind in one walkway, while reinforcements were coming up in the walkway at its front. I could see that the bunny was keeping its eyes not so much on me, so I pulled back a spiny branch and leaf, then reached out at lightening force and pinned it by the shoulder blades to the ground. A tiny struggle ensued, and the rabbit began to scream, as they do when they’re caught.

I lifted it up, then quickly caught the back legs in my other hand as it wanted to scratch at me in order to get away. The bunny was unharmed but very much caught, its eyes now bigger than ever.

“I caught it, I caught it!” While that had been the plan, I was really rather surprised at myself for catching a rabbit with bare hands! We walked the little veggie bandit from the garden, still in a little bit of shock that our catch had been successful. At the sound of the screams, an adult snowshoe hare had emerged from the chokecherry bushes, saw us, then decided there wasn’t much she could do about it. Was this momma?

We loaded up in the utility golf cart we use for chores and puttered a way down the lane, which is lined by forest. It was time to release our quarry, far away from the garden. “What shall we name him?” I mused as we prepared the release near some wild raspberries. “I know, Second Chance, because we didn’t kill it. So, little one,” I turned my attention to the bug-eyed, completely guilty looking bunny, “don’t come back to the garden, and you can live, ok?” I set it down, where it stayed frozen, then moved it into the shade, and the little rabbit scooted off into the underbrush.

I wear many different hats in a day, but varmint control wasn’t what I was expecting for that morning! Hopefully Second Chance learned the lesson and won’t be a Peter Rabbit coming back to Mr. McGregor’s Garden. We’ll see! See you down on the farm sometime.