Dear Boy,
Once on a very cold winter evening when your Auntie Karen was about 18 years old
she was driving home with one of her friends when they saw a still white rabbit
in the car's headlights. Somebody's pet rabbit escaped they thought, so they decided they had better catch it and bring it here to our house warmth. It
wasn't so hard to catch the white rabbit because it was so chilled that it couldn't run very well.
They came with that rabbit to our kitchen, right downstairs where you have ofteneaten breakfast when your grandfathers mades German pancakes for all of us when
you come to visit. I found an old baby play pen and they put the big white rabbit in there to thaw out. I guess they probably gave it a carrot or something.
Probably some water. I don't remember.
As the big white rabbit became warmer it started to growl fiercely and to make very angry noises, and to show it's big teeth! None of us never heard any bunny
rabbit do that before! They're usually completely silent. This one was absolutely furious, and probably afraid too, to find itself in a baby's playpen, with human beings in the room. After all, it certainly had never even been in a house
before! We all realized that it wasn't someone's big white pet bunny that had
run outside and gotten into trouble -- It was a wild hare in its white winter coat. Wild hares were, clearly, not peaceful bunnies! So I'm glad your aunt's friend was able to catch it quickly in a strong bag, before it became too nimble
and could leap right out of the play-pen! He always said he took it to some people he knew who kept rabbits and had good rabbit pens. I hope they let it go after the cold snap was over.
Imagine, if that angry winter hare had used its amazing leaping abilities and
jumped right out of the playpen in our kitchen! You will know what that might have been like when you read the news story below about the Norwegian hare. I guess I would have run to open the side door as fast as possible in hopes that the
hare would rush towards the outside air and leave, instead of making a mistake
running the other way and on through the house where it could have hidden anywhere. That would have made for an exciting night. Hunt the Hare, right in our own house. ;->
There are real little wild bunnies that live on the University grounds in your city. They look just like pretty pet bunnies and behave like them, except that they are wild now. They are quiet little creatures and don't want anybody to catch them. They don't want to become pets again, as their ancestors probably were
before they escaped. As long as there aren't too many of them everything will
be alright. Where you live it never gets cold enough for those pretty bunnies
to freeze up like the hare. Your Mom can tell you about what happened when somebody imported wild hare into Australia! It's quite a story.
I saw a wild black bunny and a grey and white one out on the highway boulevard the other day. You don't need to worry about them. I have seen them two years in a row. They know enough not to go on the highway, and they also don't let anybody come closer to them than about 8 feet because I tried. :-) So I think they will remain happy, wild little bunnies that give us pleasure when we see one or two nibbling grass in the sunshine like the other day when I first saw them through the restaurant window. :-))
We love you, honey. Your grandfather and I hope you have a very good day. Be sure not to miss the story below thisletter about the angry, fierce and brave wild hare in Norway!
Love from your Nana
ANGRY HARE ATTACKED DOG-SLED
A large and unusually bold hare was apparently so irritated when a dogsled team
entered its territory that it went on the attack, in an otherwise peaceful forested area of northern Norway.
Dogs are better known for chasing hares. It was the other way around in northern
Norway last weekend.
Wenche Offerdal, who was driving the dogsled team in the Reisadalen area of Troms County, had never seen anything like it.
She told newspaper Nordlys that she and her team of huskies met the hare while travelling between Saraelv and Seima Saturday evening. The hare appeared fully grown and quite aggressive.
"It was sitting 10 meters from the trail and I figured it would run off, and even that the dogs would go after it," Offerdal said. "I was wrong."
Instead, the hare came running towards the dogsled team, which came to a halt. Then the fearless hare jumped right into the middle of team.
That prompted the lead dog to turn around, which left the hare surrounded by the
huskies. The hare's odds worsened when another dogsled came up behind Offerdal'
s. That left one hare facing 13 dogs.
"It was an absurd situation," Offerdal told Nordlys. "The dogs were completely perplexed. The hare stared at them and they stared back, like they were all frozen."
Suddenly the hare seemed to reconsider its position, and leaped out of the ring,
hitting a few of the dogs over their noses with its paws on its way.
"It was an enormous leap, the hare landed outside the ring of dogs and ran off into the woods," Offerdal said.
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