The Rabbit Lady

I was about twelve or thirteen at the time the following events unfolded and living in Greenfield. We lived on Western Avenue, a street that connects the ends of West Street and Phillips Street. It was usually pretty quiet. One day, a neighbor from Phillips Street came a knocking and offered our family a couple of rabbits. I took claim of the rabbits; I was an animal loving child. Putt-Putt gave my father some mesh wire and he built an awesome hutch. My mother brought me to the pet store and we had the rabbits checked out. It was determined they were both boys and pretty healthy. We also picked up some rabbit pellets, a waterbottle, a salt lick and some straw for bedding. She then took me to the Greenfield Public Library and I took out a book about caring for rabbits. A couple of weeks later both of the rabbits were dead. My father found a place where they were selling Holland lops and drove me out to pick out a few. I believe we bought three. Within a week, a couple of them passed away. I took the sole survivor out and put him in a pen on the porch. Why were these creatures dying so quickly?! I consulted the book from the library and happened to see a warning about the wire used in hutch construction. It stated to avoid lead soldered wire. I checked with Putt-Putt, he believed it was lead soldered. They were being poisoned! I kept the surviving rabbit in the pen on the porch for a while. I named him Einstein. He was a great rabbit, very easy going and very smart. He would come when you called his name just like a little dog. A friend of my mother’s had a cousin who wanted to give away their rabbits and hutches. We happily took them in. They were a breed of mini-rex; one was red and white and the other was black and white. They were also mean rabbits. About the time the new rabbits were given to me, my mother went into labor and was admitted in the hospital. She was pregnant with twins and, I believe, my brother and sister weren’t expected for another eight weeks. She delivered at the Franklin Medical Center but they were all then transferred down to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield as my sibilings were premature. Springfield's Neonatal care unit is the best in the area. They were there for a few weeks until my brother and sister were healthy enough to come home. I really enjoyed raising these rabbits. During the winter, I used the extra formula from the twins to fatten the rabbits up. I did lose one of the rabbits given to me during the first winter, but he was really old. Einstein took the pen after it was thoroughly cleaned out. Over the next few months, I bred Einstein and the other rex. They had some litters. The rabbits all had beautiful fur, since I mixed the breeds all the rabbits of the litter were a little different. Einstein was a lop, meaning the ears are down. A rex isn’t. Some of the rabbits from the litter could hold their ears up while others kept them down. It was really interesting to see the variations. Another few winters had come and gone. It had just turned spring and I was outside cleaning out the cage of the rabbit in the tall hutch, when I found something odd. There was freshly picked grass in the nesting area. It was probably just my brother or sister trying to act like their big brother. The next day, there was more in there. I questioned them but they looked at me like I was a nut, they had no idea what I was talking about. Over the next week more weird stuff would show up in the cages. There were rocks and sticks, more grass, and some flowers. Who the hell was messing with my rabbits?! I decided to do a stake out. The hutches were on the side of the house below a window that was on the stairway. I set myself up and kept watch for most of the day. There wasn’t that much activity out there except for the occasional dog walker. Our dogs barked as my father came home, so I left my post and went into the kitchen to get a drink and say Hi. When I came back, the perp was out there at the hutches! I ran out the front door and yelled at them. “Hey! Get the heck out of here!” Like a deer in the headlights, the intruder looked at me. She may have been holding a green dog bone, but she was caught red handed. I recognized her as an older lady from a halfway/assisted living house on the upper half of Phillips Street who walked her dog around the block every day. I didn't know much about those kind of places in my youth, or else I may have been a little more patient with her. She seemed shocked and didn’t say anything as she quickly escaped from our yard. When I went to check on my rabbits, I discovered more dog bones in the hutches! She was trying to feed my rabbits dog bones! I thought she was just holding the green bone for her dog, but she was honestly trying to feed my rabbits dog bones. Unbelievable! She was caught a few more times by me but it wasn’t until my mother let into her that she finally stopped trying to feed the rabbits the dog bones. Fin.