I hate nature.

I don’t really, but…I hate nature for today. For the past few days I’ve been observing an eastern cottontail visit her nest of babies at the front of my house (literally 8 feet from my front door). I think it is a rather peculiar place to park one’s babies but she must know what she’s doing. For most of the day, everyday, this mother rabbit wanders around our backyard, eating plants and resting beneath bushes. At about 7pm, when the sun is starting to head down, she comes to her nest for only 10 minutes to milk. The first day I discovered these little baby rabbits, I did a bit of research and was rather saddened by the 10% survival rate (no wonder they give birth to up to 7 babies per litter). Today, I was further saddened when I came to fully understand why the survival rate is so low.

Just yesterday I was watching the mother feed her babies that sat in the whole she dug in the ground (one of few rabbits/hares that actually make a nest on the ground rather than in a burrow). All seemed well until the morning, when we discovered the covered nest, uncovered, and white liquid (likely milk) a few feet away. I’m sure you can guess that the baby rabbits were gone. The reason: because a raccoon ate each and every last one of them. Bastard. (Yea, that’s right, he is the illegitimate child of parents out of wedlock.)

Now, it’s just sad to think about. I was looking forward to having at least one or two new rabbits running about my yard. I can only hope that she nests some more babies this year—I sure don’t want to see the population of rabbits around here decline… I quite enjoy observing the beautiful creations around me.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting how people can care about something that their eyes cannot see. I never saw the baby rabbits (not even a pinch of skin) and I don’t know how many rabbits were even there. But somehow you can get attached to…expectation, so to say. It’s also interesting why you care about certain creatures in the first place. Do I care when I feed my lizard a cricket or when I crush the head of the cricket to make it more easily consumable? Not really. That cricket is meant to be eaten as far as I’m concerned. So what exactly makes a creature cute and careable? Or what gives an organism potential to be cared about? Rabbits are soft, furry, little things. They must be cute. But I also find my lizard cute. Why? It’s not soft or furry. Heck, it has the same beedy little eyes as a cricket does, yet I don’t treat it the same. Perhaps it has to do with quantity. Crickets come and go like hotcakes. Rabbits and lizards, not so much. Maybe the things that can’t easily be replaced, are the things that caring is meant for. Or maybe it’s far more than that…far more complex…far too much for me to really think about right now. One thing is for sure though, nature works in the way it works because it’s all meant to be—it’s all one big wheel that has to keep spinning. Sometimes though, I feel it would be pretty interesting to put a stick in the spokes, just for a moment. Y’know, mess with nature and for once have my way with it.