life and how to live it

last summer, there was a bunny who lived in our yard.

he was adorable.

hubby and i noticed him more and more frequently as the summer progressed, and finally realized he was living in our bushes. or at least spending a lot of time in our bushes.

so we worked to cultivate a relationship with the bunny. we would leave lettuce and fruit in the yard for him. we worked, little by little, to get him to trust us, so much so that if the bunny was in the yard and we came out of the back door, he wouldn't run away, but continue with whatever he was doing.

it was awesome.

and then the douchebag moved in next door. (that is a horrible thing to call another human being, i know. but it was truly the most apt description there was.)

from what hubby and i could tell, the d was the neighbor's daughter's boyfriend who, for whatever reason, began living with them. he was unclean and unkempt, had no discernible form of employment, was never spotted before noon, made very loud and very questionable phone calls on a cell phone while standing in the back yard (loud enough that we caught on to the content of the call, whether we wanted to or not), and smoked questionable items in the back yard (that we could smell, whether we wanted to or not).

the d also brought a dog with him. the dog's name was kilo. not suspicious. not. at. all.

kilo barked. all the time. non-stop. and the d wholeheartedly encouraged this.

eventually it became apparent that the d (and by extension, kilo) did not like rabbits.

 at least, he seemed to not like the bunny whose trust hubby and i had worked so hard to earn.

if the d noticed the bunny in our yard, he would point it out to kilo and get the dog all riled up, barking and jumping on the chain link fence that separates the yards.

he then tried to throw basketballs at the bunny.

and the d is still (unknown to him) thanking his lucky stars that i was not home the night that he actually got on a bicycle and rode it through our yard trying to "get" the bunny. (after the d had been smoking the previously mentioned questionable items the neighbor's yard.) hubby called the cops, but was told that unless they could actually catch the d in the act, there was nothing they could do.

so. the bunny found someplace else to live. he vanished. we kept leaving food out, but the bunny was gone. i certainly don't blame him. hubby and i actually spent the later part of last summer seriously considering moving.

but somewhere in the fall, the d packed up and left. or maybe he went to jail. i don't rule that out. either way, he disappeared. he left kilo, but the d has (knock on wood) not come back.

someone else, however, did make a return this week....

he stayed for about 20 minutes.  hubby and i were overjoyed to see him.  i hope he'll learn to trust us again....

******
you capture (not the best quality photo, i know. it was taken through the screen as i was crouching on the back porch trying not to scare the bunny. but it's a photo that makes me so so happy, even with the blurriness.)