It was a beautiful night, so we enjoyed our glasses of wine, food, and great conversation out on the patio.
As we were chatting, someone noticed a baby bunny cowering in one of the large, blue patio pots. We had no idea how it got there - the pot stands over two feet tall. And my husband had just watered them - a lot - prior to the start of our gathering. There was no sign of a bunny then.
Fortunately, one of the women in our group sprang into action, grabbed the bunny by the skin on the back of his neck, and released it into the wild. She said the bunny was big enough to live on its own and should be fine. We gladly believed her.
Several of us spent a few minutes trying to figure out how the bunny got there - rabbits are known to burrow, someone volunteered - maybe the mom had burrowed a nest in the pot? It didn't seem very likely, but that was better than any of our other thoughts. (Maybe a hawk dropped it? Maybe this little four inch bunny was really athletic and jumped up into the pot? Maybe it fell from the deck up above?) Anyway, we dropped the subject and continued with our meeting.
The following morning I was surveying the patio pots to decide how many plants I needed to buy when I saw another little bunny face buried in the dirt. Oh no! I had a dead bunny in the pot! I guess we must have drowned it when we watered last night. His sibling was fortunate to get out.
I wasn't ready to deal with the dead bunny yet - so I went plant shopping.
When I got home I grabbed my trowel and started to skim the dirt back to get at the dead bunny.
But instead of one dead bunny, I found two. And then three - four - five. A bunny graveyard.
By this time I was using a shovel to transport dead bunnies and the nest remnants to the wild open space beyond the path behind our yard.
For some reason, mother bunny thought this would be a good place to settle down and build a nest. Whatever possessed her to jump that high in the random hope she would find a good place to burrow? We will never know.
But, the bunny got me thinking.
Sometimes, like the mother, I have a tendency to jump into situations that may not seem to be the smartest but sure made sense in that moment. And other times, I wait too long to make a decision and like the baby bunny have to rely on the goodness of strangers to rescue me.
We don't always think about the consequences of our actions.
I am generally a planner and thinker- carefully considering all my options before acting. This can be good and bad. Too much thinking may mean opportunity passes us by. Not enough thinking could put us in awkward or dangerous situations.
I am retiring soon and sometimes feel like I jumped into the proverbial blue pot without putting much thought into it. I worry that I will be bored, unfocused, and end up a sad old lady.
So, I started my retirement bucket list and it is getting longer every day.
I am my mother's daughter and saw how organized she was - how every day had it's specific chores - but yet she always set aside time to do things she enjoyed. She baked, she crocheted, she took walks - and still managed to run a household with dignity and grace.
I decided to follow the example of my mother and mother nature...do what I think is right, try new things, hope for the best, and believe someone will save me if I start to drown.
It is a big, exciting world out there. Time for me to start exploring it...
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