On Protection

Life, death; rabbits; deer curry.

I let Doggie out Sunday morning and almost immediately she ran to the fence and began barking. Went out to calm her; normally, that pitch and fervor is indicative of a turtle, the presence of which in our yard Doggie finds insulting. Wasn’t a turtle though — was a baby rabbit, limp figure lying in the garden bed in front of the salvia and the roses. Stepped outside for a closer look; saw a mangled leg, puncture marks on the back, closed eyes, short, shallow breathing.

Went back inside to tell Mrs. CWD, Kiddo, and the Warthog. The kids wanted to see it, so we went outside. They bent over the panting form of the bunny. I told them something dug up its nest, that its leg might be broken.

Poor bunny, said the Warthog. Kiddo said we should put it in a box, try to keep it safe. I winced. I’ll get a box, she said, and ran into the garage. We found one, Kiddo collected some mulch, some grass and clover — searched to find a bowl or a cup that the bunny could “drink from while lying down,” settled on a mason jar lid — placed it all in cardboard, walked with it out to the bunny. As gently as I could, picked up the rabbit, still in shock, and settled it in the box. Watched its chest expand and contract.

Let’s put the box here, Kiddo said, pointing toward a patch of wildflowers. The bunny will definitely be safe here from predators. Put the box down, looked to the sky. Thought about the Calvin and Hobbes arc, where Calvin finds an injured baby raccoon and tries to nurse it back to health. In a shoebox, with water and some food. It dies and Calvin breaks down into tears. His dad tries to comfort him: “We did all we could but now he’s gone.” Calvin responds: “I’m crying because he’s gone out there, but he’s not gone inside me.” Thought about how when we’ve read that strip to our own kids, the raccoon recovers. Told Kiddo and the Warthog the best thing for us to do now would be to let the little rabbit recover, that we would check on it later. The Warthog smiled, it has a broken leg, but I think it will be okay. Kiddo said that we were taking good care of it. I gave them both a hug.

***

Was sitting outside, half listening to a conference call, half listening to red-wing blackbirds when a house sparrow darted back and forth across the lawn. Saw its quarry: a grasshopper. Watched it jump, flap, the sparrow following, once, twice. The grasshopper landed, the sparrow touched down, bobbed its head, hopped, pecked — and flew away with green between its beak.

***

Driving home earlier this month, saw a groundhog laying on its back in the road, its back legs crushed and splayed, mouth gasping open and closed. Swerved out of the way, wondered a second later if I should have just kept driving straight, expediting the inevitable.

As we headed to the playground last Sunday, Mrs. CWD asked me if we should have wrung the bunny’s neck instead of providing comfort. Same end, different means. How do we bear the burden of our attention? Where’s the line between bystander and participant?

I watched die the second deer I shot. Watched it collapse where it stood, ten yards away, paralyzed, watched it breathing. Watched it watching me. Watched it for ten minutes, an eternity, every breath a lifetime. Climbed out of the tree, nocked another arrow, held my pin over its chest, released. Exhaled, both of us, at the same time — but only I breathed back in.

***

When we got back home, Kiddo and the Warthog ran from the car to the front porch: they had seen a package. Mrs. CWD followed with the Monkey, gasped. We found its sibling, she intoned. There, on the walkway, another bunny, headless, attracting flies. Further on, a gut pile, bigger. The mother? I shoveled both up, returned them to the earth. From clover to clover, the song of the wildflowers.

***

Last weekend, we went to a nature exhibit with the kids, watched a corn snake ring ‘round the arm of the naturalist, a skunk walk confidently out of a crate onto a table. The naturalist placed out food — lettuce, bread, corn, pieces of hot dog, hamburger, raw chicken and beef. Kiddo and the Warthog felt a skunk pelt being passed around, I watched the real thing as it nosed from piece of meat to piece of meat, leaving everything else untouched.

It might have been a skunk that dug up the rabbit den, or a fox or a raccoon. It might have taken the concentrated calories in the brain and neck, left the rest when interrupted or full. Kiddo wanted to check on our bunny — still there, in the shade, shifted, nibbling, weakly, on clover stems.

***

I’m watching the fruit of the black cherry tree ripen in real time. On come the robins and the jays and the titmice and the squirrels, muzzles stained wine-dark from the gluttony. Annie Dillard writes that “the great hurrah about wild animals is that they exist at all, and the greater hurrah is the actual moment of seeing them.” Just after dinner on Sunday night, Kiddo, the Warthog, and I walked out to the wildflowers, checked on our rabbit. I picked up the box and the bunny hopped, looking to hide. Kiddo and the Warthog were delighted as I held it closer to them, then together, we let it toward the ground, watched the little thing hop once, twice, into the Black-eyed Susans.

The next morning, when Kiddo and I went to check again: there was no sign of the bunny. As we turned to head back inside, we watched as a cottontail flushed deeper into the wood line.

A deluge of rain this week, after almost none so far this summer. To celebrate temperatures in the sixties and overcast skies, I pulled a deer shank “(Buck - December 2026”) from the freezer, added to it fresh onion and garlic, crystalized ginger, salt and pepper and cumin, a can of coconut milk, a jar of golden turmeric curry, placed it in the oven, covered, and let nature run its course.

When tender, shredded the meat, removed the bone, added in from the garden hordes of squash and zucchini, some peppers, returned to the heat until the vegetables were cooked through, and then served it all over rice with homemade naans (turned into sauceless pizzas for the kids).

Again, the recipes; again, without italics. No need to force the form if it doesn’t serve its function.

This weekend, we’re back up North, reveling in late summer. We’re on to August now, with dreams of fall.

However you spend your weekend, I hope you spend it exuberantly.

We’ll see you back here next week.