The Ashlawn guard rabbit

This rabbit lives in a burrow—its entrance is about eight inches from the rabbit’s nose—just a matter of feet from my office window. I joke about it being our guard rabbit but in reality it is a rather meek animal. Rabbits come and go around here with regularity. It occurs to me their well-known fecundity is nature’s way of provide and abundance of fodder for more predatory creatures like raptors, coyotes, foxes, and so on.

I like seeing this rabbit, even though the little rascal’s eating habits are not kind to our shrubbery and bushes. Even though we put out vegetable scraps in the harder winter months, we know that when spring comes we will have landscaping fatalities caused by rabbits’ culinary indiscretions.

Ashlawn rabbit (name and rank unknown) on guard duty outside my office window.

There used to be more wildlife around here. We would occasionally see foxes go trotting by; hear an owl at night; see deer herds moving across Cemetery Ridge just above us; eagles, hawks, vultures, and lots of other birds, during the summer; squirrels and chipmunks of course; and lots of sandhill cranes. But not so much anymore. Residential development has driven most of the wildlife away.

But, for now anyway, we still have our guard rabbit.