the legend of mr. carrots

A couple weeks ago, I was outside enjoying the nice evening when I heard an incessant squeaking... I thought the dogs had found a rare tennis ball in the backyard that still had its squeak. Good for them. Except, I looked over and it was not a ball. It was something alive - something smaller than my hand - something so newborn that I couldn't figure out what it was. The dogs were told to get inside NOW, John was pulled outside to figure out what it was, and after a few googles and phone calls, we figured out it was a squirrel and drove it to the wildlife emergency vet.

If you know me, this is already hilarious. I hate squirrels. I hate them so much that people in my life love to send me emails with flowerly subject lines that distract me - then I open to find evil squirrel pictures. The rabid squirrel story from my childhood does little to find me empathy - usually a good laugh. So, obviously, I was thinking this would increase my favor with all squirrel kind. Surely they would hear of my valiant life-saving efforts and leave me alone, for good.

When we got home, we were feeling relieved... we let the dogs out to roam freely... and were really surprised when the dogs led us to THREE more babies! A quick Google told us to put them in a shoe box, and put them up in a tree so that their squirrel mama would come find them. Obviously they had fallen out of their nest. (it was all quite stressful)

The next day John was called by the wildlife place to say that our poor little squirrel we took in didn't make it through the night... and that it was not a squirrel. It was a bunny. (AHHHHHH!) We HAD to get those poor bunnies out of the treeeeeeeeee! Our trusty neighbor, Nate, went to go get them out of the tree since he'll do any of the ridiculous favors we ask we were both at work. When I got home, I found a hole in the ground and covered them with grass (thanks again, google). Basically, we had to wait and hope the mama came back to them.

Since that night, we have been checking on our bunny babies every night, and we are happy to see the mama rabbits out protecting them around dusk. They even started looking like cute bunnies last week, and two have left the hole now.

One stayed. We like to call him Mr. Carrots. He comes to see us whenever we go outside, and John pretty much thinks Mr. Carrots is his baby. Truth is - we get excited each night that he sticks around. He is so cute. So, the legend won't be about me saving squirrels, it will be about the time john adopted a bunny...

What's the punch line? I saw a new hole dug in our yard on Tuesday, covered with dead grass and dog hair... and we are pretty sure some new babies were dropped in there.