We have tremendously windy storms here in Oregon in the winter. It is sneaking from fall towards winter, and the blowy times have commenced. These are not your ordinary gusts, I'm talking about finding your lawn furniture in your neighbor's back yard - when you have a 7 foot privacy fence! But that privacy fence (at the house we moved from to come to the farm) did in fact temper the force of the winds quite a bit. And I learned to put away things like cushions and wicker until the seasons changed again. Still and all I would find my teak furniture all crowded together at one end of my patio after a blowy night, with my big heavy gas grill up against it. The bunny domicile, however, being up against the fence and in a corner, was never a casualty. My strings of paper lanterns suspended along the edge of my patio cover, while tossed about wildly at times (which was kinda cool when they were on and we were snugly inside and warm seeing them demonstrating the forces of nature howling outside our windows) remained hung and largely intact even after two winters.
So now we live on a farm. Our property is draped up a section of hills and crests the top of the ridge, with what my husband estimates as about a 500 foot elevation change from lowest to highest. THe house is somewhere near the middle. We have a lot of big trees around, so much so that you cannot see the house from the road except a teeny bit through the bare trees of winter. You would think we had some break from the wind. But nooooooo. You would be mistaken. It is HOWLING out there. When I came home this evening there were weird strings hanging from the eve of the garage. It took me a minute to figure out that was all that was left of my string of paper lanterns!
By way of background, a couple weeks ago our bunny, George, decided to make a break for it and get a taste of the wild. He squeezed under a section of the deer fencing we had put up around his hutch to give him a protected little "yard." My husband discovered this, and set about finding him. Chevy, the wonder dog, was quicker and more effective. So my husband watches the bunny sproinging his way across a section of yard, with Chevy sproinging right along after him. Chevy loves to run, and literally bounces like a sheep or a deer when she is feeling particularly exuberant. Chasing rabbits is a fairly exuberant activity, apparently. So the rabbit makes his way to our woodpile and jams his head into a space between two pieces of wood and takes the position that "if I can't see you then I am invisible", which was pretty comical. Not so comical for George, it would appear, and once my husband scooped him up and restored order in the bunny condo department, George was so grateful he immediately adopted a demeanor that fairly shouted "I am never looking for my heart's desire further than my own back yard", to paraphrase Dorothy.
So, now, cue the winds. LOTS of winds. Paper lantern shredding winds. A couple nights ago, the wind blew the hutch completely over. Just rolled it. THis is a 2x4 foot wooden structure with a heavy hinged lid. Just blew it over, and in so doing tore the deer fencing apart. George was AWOL. Looked high and low, no George. Let Chevy take a crack at it, still no George. I did not particularly enjoy texting my daughter and telling her that her bunny was with us no more, but I wanted to let her know to look for him some more when she got home. Two days of looking, no George. Time to give up and try not to imagine the predators out there who would love a little more rabbit in their diet. Maybe he will foil them all, find a wild bunny girlfriend and populate the hillsides with progeny. But I didn't give him good odds on that.
Then yesterday afternoon I get a text from my daughter - George is home. No idea where he was hanging out those few days, but he showed up very grateful to be taken inside in a cat carrier. This is one lucky bunny. He hung out in the house, terrorizing the cat and being terrorized by the dog, and unfortunately popping out pellets like a veritable bunny dung machine gun. Time to move back into the hutch, which we did plan to move into a sheltered outbuilding where we are going to store winter hay. But the wind was whipping so hard it picked up the hinged roof of the hutch like it was paper and tore it off. I mean, seriously, we would almost have to downgrade to have a tornado. I could just see poor old George sailing through the air, spinning in his hutch, while a wicked witch pedaled by on her bicycle. Georgie went back in the house in the cat carrier for now.
So the prodigal rabbit is hanging out in the kitchen staying warm. I am completely amazed, whether it was outstanding luck or outstanding good sense and directional skills, I am awfully glad to have him back. We may just have to reward him with a girlfriend....