One Thing On My Porch I Do Not Like

By Sandra The Free Range Superbunny as told to Bibi Farber

Bibi brings me things that she finds for me and if it’s treats or good branches to chew I like it.

I want to tell you about one thing that I do not like on my porch.

One day she came home with something very silly that I don’t like and I don’t need.

I don’t know what it is. She put it on me and I wiggled out of it.  Once I got it off me from the front and once from the back even though she made it tight on me.

I hope you never see me in this again.

 If you want to walk your pet in this you should get another kind of animal. Not me.  I don’t know why she thought we would ever go anywhere with this. There are no bunnies anywhere that need this.

If an outdoor bunny saw this on me he would think it was very very funny.  I don’t know who made this silly thing.

No bunnies are ever going to hop somewhere someone wants them to because of a rope like this.

There is one thing on my porch that I like AND I don’t like. It’s my pellets. There is a kind that is really really good for me and there is a kind with some treats mixed in. Bibi mixes them when she feeds me to trick me.

 I wish she wouldn’t mix them though because it makes it harder to pick out the ones I like.

This is what I do. I tip over my bowl with my mouth and spread them all over so I can separate them easier.  Sometimes I put my paws in the bowl and splash some out.  That makes it easier for me to pick out the pellets I like and I eat them first. After that I eat the other ones.

You have to be very smart and very fast and wiggle out of anything if you are a bunny because everyone is trying to trick you!

Love,

Sandra The Free Range Super Bunny

The Very Best Thing On My Porch

                                               Sandra dictated this story today to Bibi

I just wanted to tell you one thing.  There is something on my porch right now that I love more than anything that was ever on my porch.

It is my bunch of raspberry branches.  Bibi cut them off our raspberry bush because they were taking over our garden. She brought them home.

I love the raspberry jungle in our garden.  It's my favorite place to hide. Once there was a branch hanging very very low and I could reach the sweet little red parts.  I liked that.  But I think it's silly that people only eat that very little tiny sweet red part, because I like every single other thing about about my raspberry branches.

I love to eat the leaves. If you ever look on a list of things bunnies like to eat, it says raspberry leaves.  I eat them when they're fresh, I eat them when they're dry and crunchy.

I eat the roots. I chew on the twigs and branches. They keep my teeth healthy. Look what a good job I do of chewing on branches!

It is the best beauty secret for pretty girl bunnies. My fur has never been shinier or softer.

Now I have my own personal raspberry jungle at home and I hope I can always have that. It's the thing I am always always playing with. 

If you know any indoor bunnies, tell them they have to get their own indoor raspberry jungle.

Next week I am going to tell you about the thing I most don't like on my porch! 

Love,
Sandra The Free Range Superbunny

Bunny In The Garden

Last week I  chewed a special cable into 14 pieces.  It was in Bibi's closet and it's called a DSL cable.  She lets me play Bunny In The Closet and since I never chewed wires before she was surprised when she counted all the pieces. This is why her Internet stopped working.

We like to chew things because our teeth never stop growing. Bibi went to an apple orchard and got me a bag of apple branches and twigs to keep me busy while she hides all the wires in her house.

There are 4 places I can be.

1. 2.    I can always be on my porch and in my outside house, and those two places are where I live all the time until it's winter.  This is my window that connects these 2 places and I can always decide myself.

3.  I can run around in Bibi's house when she is home and she can play with me. I like to relax by the piano a lot.

4.  On special days, I can be a Bunny In The Garden. That means I run around a whole big garden that I have all to myself. 


It's safe because Bibi put extra smaller fence all around the whole fence.  The fence is for deer.   This is how big the spaces are.  Once I did get through a space like this. I shimmied my way through after 3 tries.  I was gone for 6 hours and Bibi was crying.  I was running around all day and she could see me sometimes but I wouldn't let her catch me until I got hungry and thirsty after a long time.  So she fixed the garden so I can be there and not run away.


I am the only bunny that people are trying to keep IN the garden!

It's my playground now.  I have several projects going on.  Here you can see my rabbit holes that I dig.

I do a special thing that cats and dogs don't do.  After I dig dig dig I turn around push away the dirt I just dug so I can keep digging deeper.  Rabbits are better at making secret tunnels than cats and dogs are because of this trick.  I have started 4 different rabbit holes in my garden.

See I my face got dirty when I was working!

Then I like to run around a lot. I really kind of leap through the air in the garden and I pretend someone is chasing me!  Sometimes there are cats and dogs outside the fence... we run around very fast like crazy even though they never can get me!

I don't eat crops, mostly I get a belly full of weeds when I play Bunny In The Garden.  I did try a raspberry one day and I liked it but I like the leaves and stems almost even more than the little sweet red part.

There's almost no weeds I don't like. Grass and old dead grass are some of my favorites. Dandelion, and clover is good.  I even ate poison ivy and The Internet said that is very bad for me but I loved it and I was fine.  I find new things all the time.  Like leaves of string bean plants.  Flowers from bolted mustard greens. Leaves of wild strawberries. I always find different little things and Bibi goes and picks them for me once she knows I like them.  But not poison ivy!

Can you see me hiding in my raspberry jungle?  I like to be here for hours all by myself!

Sometimes I even want to be picked up and snuggle even when it's Bunny In The Garden  playtime.  If Bibi is weeding,  she might feel some little paws on her back and she turns around and it's me!

Sometimes it gets hot and that is not good for bunnies so we go home to the shade and cold water.

Sometimes I just play hard- to- get for a long time though. I am very very good at that game!   Bibi has to trick me!  She pretends she is feeding me treats but she really just wants to pick me up and put me in the little bag I travel in when we play Bunny In The Garden.  Most of the time I grab the treats quick quick quick and I run away back to my raspberry jungle and I eat them and she says:  "Sandra! We have to go home!"

Then I do sometimes let her trick me, because I'm really an indoor bunny and I like that. At home I have my pellets and my water and a salad of vegetables and a salad of weeds and those are all the things I really like.  I also have my outside house if I want to still be outside.

You can only be an outdoor adventure bunny if your mommy was one and she could show you.  I was a real outdoor adventure bunny for a little while, and I think it was too hard.

Here is a picture of a real outdoor bunny.  He WISHES he could get into our garden.

But when I play Bunny In The Garden I can pretend, sometimes all day.

Then I want to go home, clean myself up and sleep a little where there's no dogs or cats and and wake up and eat my pellets and relax and just chew my apple twigs for awhile. 

Love,
Sandra The Free  Range Superbunny

Everyone Is Too Much In My Business

Sandra speaks to you directly to tell her side of the story.

When I got my new house outside I was running back and forth all the time.  I spent less time on the porch because now I had a new private place to be.

One day Bibi noticed that I wasn’t pooping in my litter pan.  She went to The Internet right away and she told it: Bunny Not Pooping.  It told her This Is A Big Emergency.  Even if we seem fine and even if we’re eating and moving, this can be the end.

It’s because we have very sensitive super fragile bunny bellies.  Sometimes, if you even give us a tablespoon of something that we’re not used to we can get all stuck.

When we get stuck we can get really stuck.  If we don’t poop for 2 days we can die.  The Internet said take bunny in to the hospital even if it’s only been 12 hours.

Bibi checked to feel for any big stuck bump in my bunny belly.

But I seemed so normal and I was running and jumping and dancing like I do every night. So she waited to see if I would poop the next morning.  At 5:30 a.m. she checked my pan.  

No poops. 

Bibi immediately called two animal hospitals. She told them all about me. They said it’s not an emergency yet but we have to see how today goes.

Then she met her neighbor Tom who was walking his dog Watson and she told him.  “Sandra may have a gastro intestinal issue: She is not pooping enough!”

Then she got to work and she told a lady named Sue.  Then she called a third animal hospital where they have more doctors who know about rabbits. By now she had three professional opinions. Then she came home and told neighbors Nancy and Emily.  Then she told her father on the phone.

All day to everyone she said: “Sandra’s not pooping enough”

And everyone said: “Goodnight Bibi. I hope Sandra poops more tonight.”

Everyone is too much in my business. I know what is going on in my bunny belly.

It’s all fine and nothing got stuck.  I just decided that my outside house is better than a litter pan on the porch.  I have my own house now so I can take care of my business in a space that’s mine. Now Bibi never has to clean anything up after me. 

And there will be more happy grass and flowers in that spot than anywhere else because of me!

Love, Sandra

Sandra's and Bibi's New Life Together

 Sandra’s and Bibi's New Life Together

This sweet creature is teaching me that even the most hard wired instincts and pre-conceived notions can be overcome. 

How is it that she trusts me? I am a natural predator! It feels like I am glimpsing heaven when she comes up to me and wants to be picked up, to be stroked, to be told that she is loved. I am so honored to experience every day, that we have broken through an evolutionary barrier.  

Today in the garden, where she runs freely and usually has much to discover and eat, I felt her front paws on my back as I was weeding. She wanted to cuddle in the midst of her precious outdoor time!

Obviously, her natural fear of humans has been bred out of her over the two thousand years that rabbits have been domesticated, but I feel like each sweet and trusting moment together is a small miracle.

She lets me know that she wants to live here with me.  Every day when I come home she hops right out to greet me. Even when she escapes,  she stays where I can see her, and always eventually lets me pick her up to come home. 

What a difference it makes in one’s life—to have a living thing to pick up, kiss and say “good morning!” and “I love you"to.

Her play instincts are so different than cats and dogs.  She doesn’t chase things.  She has no desire to catch anything at all.  If an object is moving, even a small one, she runs away – never toward it. She is not the least bit curious about let's say, pawing at large bugs the way a cat would be.

Our play involves her running in circles around me if I am sitting on the floor, or around my feet. She may pick up things with her mouth and “throw” them. Then she runs at warp speed through the house, punctuated by joyful leaps straight up in the air. I pretend to be an animal chasing her and she loves that.

Makes sense: she is born to be chased. That is her game.  The big pay off -- survival, is granted by successfully running away, not catching things.

She’s a little vegetarian at the bottom of the food chain.  With her sweet, non- violent disposition, all she asks is that there always be lots of grass, dandelion and hay. 

Of course she eats a more varied diet than that, with pellets and plenty of vegetables She discovers new things all the time: latest favorites include bok choi, wild strawberry leaves and the leaves of string bean plants.

Bananas, apples and pears are very high on her list as well.  The other day I caught her licking some dark chocolate I left laying around!

Chocolate and bananas would rank way higher on Sandra’s list than carrots in case you’re interested.  She could take or leave carrots. Don't worry, I don't let her actually eat chocolate!

Does she wonder why all these animals desperately want to eat her – can she relate to that, being a vegetarian?  Everyone’s trying to get her but she’s not trying to get anyone.  I guess she just takes it for granted by now.

Although she generally loves the darkest, smallest, most cramped spaces she can find, I set about building her an outdoor house that she can freely go and from via a cat door on the porch.  Here it is the day it was built, with architect Alex Hanewich.

It’s a huge customized hutch with a house of her own, plenty of yard space and a special ramp leading right up to the porch. All enclosed with chicken wire, even on the bottom, so she can’t dig out and predators can’t dig in.  The "yard" has plenty of grass growing through it now.

Sandra now spends plenty of time in her outside house, and it brings me great joy to see her coming and going, dozens of times a day.

She has made her main home out there, even stays there at night and in the rain. 

Basically, she comes inside only to get a break from the heat, to eat and to say hello to me!

Here she is coming down her ramp that connects our homes!

Here she is on her Deciding Shelf, where she can always decide whether to be an indoor bunny or an outdoor bunny.

Since we built her house, she is even more content, affectionate and independent than ever. When I come home she rushes out, often for a just a quick hello, and then she goes hopping right back out.  

But I know she's glad I'm home ... and I'm always overjoyed that she's home.

Bibi Farber

Sandra's Nest

                                             

Today, Sandra The Free Range Super Bunny who lives on my porch built a nest. She is going through a false pregnancy, something female unspayed rabbits do.  They pull out their fur, gather all the hay they can find and build a nest. They also have hormonal components to this experience.  They are so programmed to be constantly pregnant that they go through the motions whether they are or not! 

A false pregnancy can be triggered through being in contact with a human female who has recently given birth.  Last week, my neighbor Stephanie was here with her one-week old newborn.  Sandra must have absorbed all the Mommy spirit around us!

Today, 9 days later she has been furiously putting this nest together.  She has been so determined all day, to gather all the hay she can find, and put it in this spot. There are plentiful stashes of hay on her porch and she collected every last straw for her project. For hours she took mouthfuls and went into a big rectangular cardboard box I have for her that she never showed much interest in.

 

She went into the farthest corner of this box, protected from the outside light, and started stashing her most precious and soft things.  She brought all her fur in there. She tried to chew my sweatpants. Just kept chewing bits off of anything soft she could find. I got her a red blanket that she tried to bring in there.  I cut up a soft black sock and she did take me up on that.

Sandra’s fur pile – one of many

Hay supply before 

 

and after

This is my message to little Sandra.

Dear Sandra,

I am so impressed with the nest you built all by yourself today! I seldom see anyone work with such determination for so many hours.  You didn’t let anything distract you! Not food, not petting, not treats - nothing!  You just kept going with each hay load in your little mouth!

I never saw you approach hay like that– gathering it up in your mouth in bunches because when you eat it you only suck in one long piece like a noodle and you take your time.

Today you were building a secret nest! I am glad you could use the socks I cut up.  You even pulled pieces off the blue blanket.  That used to be my mother’s and I know if she can see you, she is just overjoyed that you are using her blue blanket for your  nest.

The only break you took was when you stopped so you could keep pulling more fur off yourself!

I know it’s going to be a wonderful cozy nest, full of all the most soft and precious things you could get.

I know you wish you had some babies coming to be in your nest that you could take care of. I would so happy to help you if you had any babies coming.  You would be a great Mama I know it.

Sandra, there are so many babies in the world – rabbit kind and people kind.   Some ladies just don’t have any and maybe that ‘s ok.

I just want to tell you – I knocked myself out just like you did .  I built my nest and put all the best things I could find in there.  I went shopping and brought home all the things. I made it as nice as I could.  My mother did the same thing, many many times. My sister did too. We worked really hard like you did today.

That is what we women do Sandra.  We knock ourselves out building a nest. 

Even if no one is showing up.  

Sandra's First Adventure: Moving In

 The True Adventures Of Sandra The Free Range Super Bunny

as told to Bibi Farber

This is the story of a domestic runaway or abandoned rabbit who was spotted in early March of 2011 under my neighbor's porch.   I have taken photos to document her story, but am letting her speak to you directly.  These excerpts are from her upcoming book of memoirs.    

When they first saw me, they didn't know that I really needed help.  It was obvious I was not a garden rabbit, first of all because of my long tufts of soft fur around my face, and my unusual colors.  Also, I seemed to want to hang around the houses instead of hopping away quick quick quick like an outdoor rabbit.  I was a little out of place.  What to do?  The shelters are always full to capacity and there's even a waiting list of 12 rabbits to get in.  A lady named BIbi gave me an organic carrot.  Her neighbor John said I looked like a stuffed animal.  He said I could stay under his house as long as I wanted.

I didn't know where to go so I stayed there near the people.   They thought it was great that a caged animal "broke free" and was finally living the good life. Meanwhile, I was living in great discomfort, danger and terror.  I stayed near the people because hawks and coyotes might not come so close.  I like to be out at dusk and dawn eating all the grass I can eat, and that is when they would want me -- for breakfast or dinner!  But there was another problem near the people: dogs and cats!  Everyone is pretty much trying to kill me and eat me!  Not being paranoid- it's really true.

The people thought they were being helpful when they fed me under the porch. They put some hay there but it wasn't the kind I like to stay warm and to eat, which is timothy hay.  They put real rabbit food and water there.   It was always way too cold for me. I want it to be at least 45 degrees F.  The water froze every night.

The biggest problem: The food and the whole set up was a great way of announcing to all the coyotes, hawks, cats and dogs: HEY--  ANYONE HUNGRY?  THERE IS A LIVE DEFENSELESS RUNAWAY BUNNY RABBIT HERE!  COME AND GET HER!

Several times I had to run for my life.  It's a blessing that I can hop, jump and leap at a speed that is just slightly faster than the dogs that chased me. Once a dog ran me all over the property!  I was scared and exhausted and I stayed under the porch for hours afterwards.

Sometimes it was fun to be an outdoor adventure rabbit. When the sun came out and nobody was trying to kill me, I rather enjoyed myself.  I was proud for every day I survived.  I posed for my portraits one nice day.

Then I decided I had had enough.  On a rainy day in March I just stayed by the people's cars all day. I was under them or next to the whole entire day.  That was the day I ate a piece of apple out of Bibi's hand. I also let her pet me and I didn't run away.  I wanted to be adopted.  It was hard work being an outdoor adventure rabbit.  My life had become too harrowing and unmanageable.   I wanted to get back to normal life and let people feed me and live somewhere with no coyotes or hawks or cats or dogs. I wanted to live somewhere my water didn't freeze every night.  So I announced I was up for adoption by hanging out by the cars. All day long I waited there.

Nobody took the hint.  But the next day I finally met an animal that was NOT trying to kill me!  It was a handsome wild garden rabbit.  We had a ball!  We hopped and played for hours -- chasing each other and running away from each other, and chasing some more!  The people thought surely this was my big break- and that this wild rabbit fellow and I would hop off into the briar patch and we would have a family together right away!  It was getting dark and everyone thought that was the most romantic most beautiful possible happy ending in the world for any creature!

But on The Internet, where the people learn all kinds of things about how to take care of me-- it said that wild rabbits KILL domestic rabbits!  Not even to eat them, because we are all vegetarians but  -- just because!  We are not the same species!  We couldn't have a family even if we were friendly because of different chromosomes and things!  We're not at all the same thing. Not even as close as horses and donkeys who can have a family if they want to.

We ended up enjoying a very long first date, and I stayed away the whole next day.  The people were heartbroken that what seemed like a magical happy ending might have been the end of me. Thank goodness, he did not try to kill me, but it was clear that handsome wild rabbit and I did not have enough in common.  We don't have the same lifestyle at all. His life seemed very rough. There are no people to pet him or give him anything, or say: "WHERE is my Super Bunny!?"

They set a Have A Heart Trap and at night the next day, I DID come back for my pellets and frozen water and the well -intended- but- all- wrong -hay.  I went into the trap, set with fruit and things I like and the steel door shut behind me!

She was overjoyed to catch me and I have been on Bibi's porch ever since.  The first night I drank about 2 cups of water.  She still doesn't have a cage for me, because she knows I am Sandra The Free Range Super Bunny, and I love to run around and have room for my things.  I have about 300 sq. feet all to myself, which is even more room than most PEOPLE in cities.

I have learned that living ON a porch is much better than living UNDER a porch. This is my sofa that I can jump up on. When people visit me they pick me up and pet me on this sofa.  What looks like a carrot here is my calcium mineral chew stick.

This is me in my princess canopy bed.  Usually it is all covered up. I spend a lot of time here.  This is where I feel the most safe.  If you're looking for me, you'll probably find me under here.

Kicking back on a Sunday!

We went to the vet who looked in my bunny ears and said everything was fine. They picked off a tick that's all.  No fleas, not dehydrated-- nothing bad happened on my outdoor adventure!

I don't want to go outside anytime soon, that is true  -- but I DO love to go in Bibi's house!  My favorite place is by the window where I watch the outside where I used to live.  Sometimes I think about the rainy day I was all alone out there just hoping....it's much better on the inside!

Here I am doing one of the top 10 cutest things I do: I wash my face with both hands!  And yes I DO wash behind my ears.

 

I sometimes help BIbi work.

 

 Sometimes I fall asleep in her lap.

This is what we both figured out: There is lots of unexpected love lurking everywhere…even in the strangest places!   Love that lasts a lifetime may show up in the form of a little runaway fur ball under your neighbor's porch.  

Love to you!

Sandra the Free Range Super Bunny