Self-portrait Tuesday: Wabbit Season

I started the morning fully intent on spending several hours on yard work.  See?  I've got my gardening hat on - that means business!

But I got to work and it was WINDY.  Which made things difficult.  Then I realized that I was out of yard work garbage bags, and basically all I was planning on doing this morning was cleaning up from winter.  Dang.  And then Josh and I discovered this in the back yard.

That's right, my friends.

A bunny.

Two bunnies, to be exact.  Can you see it's sibling kinda sitting on top of him?  Josh was hoeing in the garden and nearly chopped one of these bunnies in half.  (How traumatic would that have been?)  I was so surprised I didn't know what else to do other than take a picture.

Then I got to thinking.  Bunnies... not good.  Not for gardeners anyway.  As I was thinking of ways to catch them, Josh decided it was wabbit season.  He started chasing one of the bunnies around like a natural-born coon hound, hollering to wake the dead.  It was the time of his life.  Cole was sitting in the middle of the yard, loving this wonderful show and laughing his head off.  It was the time of his life, too.

I gave up on the idea of catching the bunnies, at least with Mr. Joshie around.  I finished up what yard work I could and then started filling up all the bunny hiding places with rocks.  (Like behind the fence posts.)  By then Josh had chased one of the bunnies out of our fence (is it unrealistic to think it won't be back?) and had lost the other one.  (I decided not to stop up the two places I'm pretty sure they come in and out of yard through - I don't want to trap them in.  I want to make sure all bunnies are out first!)

Josh was so excited about the bunnies that we had to call Lance at work and tell him all about them.  And it was the first thing out of his mouth when we picked Spencer up from school.  Spencer got into it and started coming up with elaborate plans to catch a bunny.  It was pretty fun to listen to.  (My favorite was Spencer's idea of just hiding in a box and then jumping out to grab the bunny once the bunny got close enough.  Simple, but funny.) 

After lunch we had a couple of kids from church come over to play.  (Their mom had to take their brother to the doctor and didn't need the entourage.  I completely understood and was more than willing to help out!)  Ashley, who is Spencer's age and good friend in Primary, was very excited at the prospect of catching a bunny.  I sent all of the kids in the back yard on a bunny hunt, never dreaming that they would actually catch one - but they did!

We spotted the bunny, chased him around a bit, and then as I prodded him out of a hiding spot Ashley was quick enough to catch him.  I was (and still am) quite impressed, because that bunny was fast.

The kids were quite put out that I wouldn't let the bunny in the house.  So we compromised and made a makeshift (and very temporary!) home for him.

Poor bunny.  He was really man-handled there for a while.  I finally decided he had been tortured enough, so I put a terra cotta pot in the box and made the kiddos put him in there, where he hid for several hours.

I made it very clear from the get-go that this was NOT a pet bunny and that he needed to go back "home" to the field just north of our home.  So after dinner we loaded the bunny into the wagon and walked up to the field.  With the wagon and the stroller and three little kids it was like a little parade.

Once we got to the field I asked Lance to gently let the bunny go.  Here's what he did.  Meanie.

Man oh man.  This was all pretty exciting, but I don't want bunnies in my back yard.  Anyone have any advice?  Until I know what to do, I guess Spencer and Josh will just have to be on continual bunny alert.