Unloved?

I haven't written in my diary for ages. Nobody has taken any notice of me for weeks and weeks. Oh, they gave my my food and water and stuff but they don't love me the way they did before the duck invasion.
You might remember that duck came back. She lost all her babies and came back and laid some more eggs.
There were 10 ducklings this time and "we".......not me..............decided to keep them until they were strong enough to walk down the lane to the lake.
Well, we had them for three and a half weeks and you have never seen such fat things on two skinny legs with huge flat feet.

It was Disney World here for them. They ate chick crumbs every couple of hours, washed them down with fresh water, dashed manicaly about the garden, nibbled everything in sight including MY carrot tops, pooped all over the yard, plopped in and out of the pond, fell down the side of the oil tank and had to be fished out with the pond net. Even my hay was given to them for a bed underneath the garden seat up against the house wall. It was mayhem and they got all the attention.It went on and on and they grew bigger and fatter by the day.

Then, three days in a row their mother escaped into the big garden with them. Great, I thought, Molly the cat next door will get them but they came back each day for lunch, slept over, ate like horses then escaped again for good.

After that I went on holiday to Bunny Hops while my lot had a few days rest at the seaside.
Bunny Hops is my very favourite place in the world. I was fussed and cuddled and had a bedtime story every night. I took all my own stuff so it was home from home. Naturally they loved me. I needed to leave lots of my raisins about my run to make it really mine because there were one or two other rabbit about but I don't think Julie minded too much. She texted my lot twice each day and sent pictures to them. I'm going again in two or three weeks. Can't wait. There is so much going on there to entertain me.

It's all a matter of technique

First of all you scrabble your front legs about in the bag opening. Once you've made a hole you scrabble them a bit more until you get yourself most of the way in. Then, this is the best bit, you pull your back legs up to your front legs then KICK backwards with a quick flip until the hay flies out behind you in a storm, then you do it again and again and again. Simple. There you are,deep inside the sweet smelling hay bag and nobody has the faintest idea where you've disappeared to. Magic. Then you grab what you came for because the sweetest bit of hay is always at the bottom of the bag. Out you come with a flourish, nibble it until it's gone then back you go again right to the bottom.
Once you're in there you can't hear a thing. There's bound to be somebody saying, just look at the mess that rabbit's making! Won't he ever grow up?

Ouch!

That duck has just bitten me! She has a huge mouth.. All I did was wander over to see what she was eating and she pecked at me. They still put tasty looking food down for her and I wanted to try it. She's getting uppity because she has laid more eggs but we don't know where. She must know she will never get the babies out from here nor from next door because they have walls and fencing all round to keep their dog in. She is one of the most silly things I have ever known. At least the cats and dogs I have lived with had more sense and didn't lay eggs around other people's gardens. It's the ducklings I feel sorry for. Poor little things.

J is worrying now in case I catch some disease. She doesn't use a litter tray you know. The duck I mean.Not J. Messy creature.

Still, I'm feeling more important than that duck because I have a double page spread in the latest Rabbiting On magazine. I'm a celeb and I didn't have to be skinny to do it.
That pesky blackbird is still nagging for grapes and sultanas. Has nobody told him about worms?Worms are for blackbirds, grapes and sultanas are for rabbits. Now he has a baby as well and has brought it onto my patch.

Don't look down at me like that. I'm not going to give you any of my grapes.

Jamais plus.

I can't remember the last time I cried but I can't stop at the moment. All the babies are dead. They didn't make it to the lake. Twelve little beaks and twenty four little flat, webbed feet. They must have fallen behind her one by one and she wouldn't have known. All the pleasure they had in life was a dip in a drop of water in an old Swiss roll tin in the garden and the sun on their faces for a couple of hours.

She's back here again with the two drakes and they have forgotten. I wish I could.

If the drakes are still fertile she could produce another brood. I hope she doesn't.

I wish I had forced them into a carrier and taken them myself.

I wish...................

Would you believe it, those ducks are back. Just as I was going out of the back door for a breath of fresh air she arrived on the step begging for food. Huh! When can a rabbit have his garden to himself!

A Right Royal Occasion

It's a boy! It's a girl........................................

I'm an uncle at last to 12 adorable ducklings. They don't have names so I've called them all Harvey. My lot wanted to name them after some of the plants in the garden, Bluebell, Forget-me-not, Parsley, Rose and so on but I prefer something simpler. Harvey One through to twelve seems much more sensible.

I knew they would be the best ever because they belong to me. Even the two drakes came down for the first outing.

None of them wanted to go .......

..... but after playing around and drying off for a couple of hours or so, we herded them across the paddock.......

.......past the pigsty and into the farmer's field.

When she got them all through the gap she turned and quacked at us before she set off for the lake.

Oh, well, I've got my garden back even if the cantankerous blackbird is still around. He must be well stuffed with my raisins by now.

What wedding?

We were amazed at the attention of the drakes having been led to believe they opted out once the duck began to brood. They have remained at her side to the end.

Easter Bunday

And I'm the Easter bunny! Yea, I'm in the Pets Corner for Easter Sunday in the Telegraph! Not the Puddleby-on-the-Marshduck Telegraph but the BIG Sunday Telegraph. It's all about me, me , me.

There'll be one jealous duck in my garden take my word for it.

I sent them two photographs but they only used one of them. The other was a magnificent picture of one of my very best caecotrophs, the biggest ever. Maybe they thought nobody would want to look at it while they were eating their toast and drinking their coffee. Can't think why not. Mind you, they got it wrong about me living in a town too. I'm a Shire rabbit through and through. Open skies, dusty lanes, songbirds, ducks....................Ducks? Did I say ducks? Oh, carrots!!Anyway, for my family, friends and fans out there, here's the missing photo.

Jealous?

It's all about ducks here so I'm huffing. It's "Is she off her nest yet?" "Has she come down for food this morning?" "Have the boys come to see her today?" It's ducks, ducks, ducks, nothing but ducks.

I went outside yesterday to check for myself. It's my garden for goodness sake even though I don't bother much with it. You can't cover everything if you're a house rabbit but that doesn't mean I want other folk in there poking their noses into my affairs.

I prepared a few scrapes ready for my carrots, did a good bit of trimming the flat leafed parsley and checked out one or two of the borders but didn't spot or smell her. She must be well hidden. There was nobody in the pond either. I'll be glad when those chicks hatch and we can get back to me being centre stage. Can't be too long now for goodnss sake. She's making a real meal of this giving birth. We rabbits find it so easy.There's never this sort of fuss with does.