Cohabitating

All of a sudden we have a bunny that hangs out in our yard all the time. I have no idea where Bunny came from, or where Bunny sleeps at night. She or he appeared suddenly: one day, James texted me a picture while I was at work of a rabbit in our yard, something that we’ve never noticed before (and gosh, we’ve lived here 15 years I think!).

Since that day, Bunny has been a pretty consistent resident.

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(This is Bunny’s favorite nap spot under my mock orange. Bunny is surprisingly unfazed by people and even dogs walking by on the sidewalk right behind.)

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I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it is sweet to work on my porch and have Bunny snoozing out here with me. There’s something very peaceful about a snoozing rabbit 10 feet away from me, just existing. Sometimes Bunny gets up and stretches and nibbles on the small amount of grass we still have in the yard, and it’s pretty darn cute.

On the other hand, I have also watched Bunny nibble branches off my blueberry bushes, and I despair for the tender spring leafy greens that come up on the plants I have tried so hard to curate in our yard. I despair in advance for the sweet crops we plant this year that I’m sure Bunny will munch. I also wonder if Bunny has been here longer than we’ve known, and if I’ve been blaming the squirrels for digging up and eating things that Bunny was also munching on.

I keep reminding myself that I have tried really hard to create good habitat for critters in the little 0.1-acre urban patch of earth we tend and live on, so in that sense it is a win that Bunny wants to hang out here. It’s also a sweet reminder that when I try to create habitat, I am not an autocrat. I don’t really get to (and nor do I really want to) decide who gets in and who stays out. Something that is good for the birds that I want to attract might also be delicious for the bunnies that are cute but eat my spinach. Our beautiful and huge backyard deodar cedar, so lovely for shade and one of my favorite things about our house, is sort of annoyingly attractive to raccoons, who are also cute when little but obnoxious in other ways, especially when they make the crows crazy in the early morning. All my sweet little native shrubs feed beneficial insects as well as the annoying insect pests who eat our kale and attack our apple tree; all of those attract many of the birds I love but then there are the starlings and feisty crows that are the bullies of our neighborhood. But it’s all part of the land we try to tend here and it’s all that crazy messy swirl of life that I love so much.

But I may need to figure out a crop protection mechanism! Unless Bunny gets eaten by an urban coyote first — which is not inconceivable given that we have those around too.

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No, this has had nothing to do with bikes, but, sort of in the same way I conceive of riding a bike, it is about trying to be a good cohabitating citizen of this world with all our little urban creatures. Tread lightly, y’all.