Bunny Love
(I’ve been tagged by Foots to do a meme but I’m not in the memey mood right now. I’m in a bunny mood having watched a host of them courting on the lawn as I sipped my coffee this morning. So I’ll do the meme on Monday which is alliterative so it must be meant to be. I’m also mumming on Monday – Troilus and Cressida, in the evening – as well as my usual mammy duties. I tell you this not because it is important, but merely because it is not very often that I am meming, mumming and mamming all on a Monday and I want to tell somebody.)
Anyway.
It’s spring! The time when a young buck’s fancy turns to love and there are loved-up bunnies all over our garden at the moment. They are near demented with it and more than once I’ve seen the white of a lusty bunny eye. In the evening they will rear up in majestic rabbit rampant sillhouette causing you to remember good, brave Hazel from Watership Down and weep.
We are very lucky here at Rancho Problemo and have a full orchestra ready and waiting to provide heightened emotion to our everyday activities – things like The Luvin’ Spoonful hits on shuffle at breakfast time, “O Fortuna!” when we prepare fish steaks and, unexpectedly, “I’m Going To Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair” when I’m doing the hoovering. But we’ve had “Bright Eyes” on a loop for a week now and, frankly, I’m about ready to reach for a big ole Elmer gun and thort that pethky orchethtwa out.
Rabbits are not like us I observed lazily this morning, the sun shining in the window and bathing my bumble-bee slippers with light. They don’t have our inhibitions and “meta”ness. Their manners in mating matters aren’t like our’s either. They will tear about the garden like lunatic furballs without a care for the circling hawks above, the possibility of a beaky death only adding to the piquancy of their lust. Then a frisky young doe will suddenly turn coquettishly with a shiver of her little bobtail and she and her suitor will crouch face-to-face, ears flat and stock-still for half a minute or more, only their twitching noses to tell us that we aren’t looking at a still-life painting. Their twitching noses and the lack of a frame.
Then, suddenly!, she will leap 3 feet straight up into the air and they’re off again, haring round the lawn and sending little clods of turf flying. Moments later they will disappear into a bush which will tremble and squeak for about twenty seconds before two plumes of lazy curling smoke come out of its top.
Later, you see them pretending they don’t know each other, but she has a new looseness about her hips when she hops, and he’s writing poetry in the mud with his nose. Lovesick and unguarded, he will hop out into the open for a better peek at her as she grazes with her girlfriends, forgetting that he, as a bunny, is one of the most eaten creatures on earth. The sky will darken, a hawk will swoop and a bobcat will pounce and collide with the hawk in a puff of blood and fur and feathers as our hero hops a few hops forward forward, oblivious to the carnage behind him, his only concern whether he should have used the Petrarchan rather than the Shakespearean form for his x-rated sonnet. The end.
Hey, it’s nearly Valentines Day, folks – you didn’t think I was going to kill the bunny, didja? No, he is flattened later by a UPS delivery truck.
Anyways, this is what our pops orchestra played this morning when I threatened to disembowel them with the cymbals if the played one more bar of “Bright Eyes”:
Bunny lovin’ – had me a blast
Bunny lovin’ – happened so fast
Met a doe, crazy for me
Met a buck, cute as can be
Bunny fun, something’s begun
But ooooooh these springy dawns
A well a well a well a…
(Massed Blue-birds and fawns)
Tell me more tell me more does he have an o-er bite?
(Massed gophers and raccoons)
Tell me more tell me more, was her tail fresh and white?
Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huhoooaaah
She hopped by me, nibbled some grass
He just sat there right on his ass.
She went skipping, I caught her eye
He ignored me, I don’t know why.
Bunny treat, doe and buck meet
But oooooooooh, these springy dawns
A well a well a well a…
Tell me more, tell me more, did he sing you a song?
Tell me more, tell me more, was she wearing a thong?
It grew warmer as the day broke.
I spiked her dew with ‘hypnol and coke.
I woke up, about mid-day
Oh she was flat out and I had my way
Bunny rape, too doped to escape
oooooh ooooooooooh these spri-ngy daaaaaaaaaaaawns
Oh oh oh
(Sotto voce)
Tell me more, tell me mo-ho-ho-ho-ore!
(And fade…)
February 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Dammit, you’ll have me going “a wella wella wella..” all the live long day now that it’s stuck in my head.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
The Germans call it an ear-worm. It’s funny how they can take something relatively pleasant and turn it into something sinister and unnatural sounding.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:23 am
‘and he?s writing poetry in the mud with his nose.’
Gold, that should be framed.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Are the twins allowed to watch these bunnies going at it like rabbits or do you put your maternal hands over their eyes?
February 9th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Perfect clash of instincts, that tale. Love versus survival. There’s a huge metaphor in there somewhere, if not an entire 90 minute PBS Nature special. But two boys are yelling at each other because one dropped the pancakes on the kitchen floor, so I will eschew the opportunity.
Cheers.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Laughykate, I wouldn’t write it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
Nanas, it’s all sex and violence in the natural world, isn’t it? The other day there was a dead rabbit on the road near our house being devoured by 3 turkey vultures. The Prob Hub let the girls watch briefly which I guess is OK, but I am content to let them believe that madness rather than lust seizes bunnies in the Spring. Madness being so much more acceptable than lust in Puritan North America.
Rand, I’m in talks with PBS this very day, as it goes. They want me to do a documentary segment for Barney. I have told them I will stab Barney with a spoon if he is allowed within a hundred yards of me. It’s best to get yourself established as a diva early on with PBS – you get the best changing rooms. I hope the pancakes fell syrup side up?
February 10th, 2008 at 7:27 am
It’s spring? Isn’t it still February? I’m confused.
February 10th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Ha ha, lovely pictures and mood music Sam!
The hares will be”at it” soon too. They just discovered it’s the female who boxes the males to get them to leave her alone! Greta Garbos with whiskers all of them!
And the ducks are as bad, but I would go there as there are too many easy rhymes…….
February 10th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Love it.
Sandy and Danny with cotton tails.
So she got herself a bad perm and some spandex at the end of the lawn courtship?
February 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Kara, it’s springing in Southern California anyway. There are still brown leaves left on some trees and buds poking their way out. Very odd.
Apprentice, I was saying to Nanas up there that Nature was all sex and violence but I hadn’t realized domestic violence was a problem too outside the black widow spider community. I hope some of these poor battered male hares are beginning to open up and get some counselling. I guess we never really know what goes on behind closed gates, eh?
Medbh, her heels really pushed out her little bob-tail too. If only she hadn’t got lipstick on her teeth.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
We here in Ireland have the spring also. This morning I encountered primroses, just two, frowering with the hope only they own. The days getting longer, the planted snowdrops, nothing matches the first primrose.
We will have to wait ’til March for that frisson you write on. But soon.
A lovely post, BTW.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Oh no oh no oh no! It’s Monday morning and I’m going to have this song in my head for a week!
Here in the southern hemisphere it’s turning to Autumn, and as a summergirl I’m feeling sad and chilly. I’m very jealous!
February 11th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
VincentH Is right! It’s sunny for day 4 in a row and there are daffodils all over the place. Huzzah for spring.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
You deserve ten BAFTAs for that ‘lovely piece to read on a Monday.’ So here’s a virtual one.
Sam: Californian bunnies don’t really do it with their noses do they?
February 11th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Oh, Da Bunnies!;)
It is catchy, JohnMc, I am singing it too. These lyrics, though, I like better.
Spring (like love) is everywhere. Snowdrops are almost over, but I saw the buds on a pussy willow, and … two dogs in heat….love is around me together with all stray dogs….
February 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Now when you say flattened by a UPS delivery truck, just how flattened? Like, would any bits be salvageable? I really need a replacement lucky rabbit’s foot. I lost mine at cards.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I really shouldn’t read your lyrics at work… I’m sure the person I share an office with thinks I’m bonkers!
February 11th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
A little too early here in the frozen northland (as my Key Westian pal calls it, even in summer) for bunnies bopping in the backyard–they’re still lying in wait under the ‘48 to chase the birds away from the feeder. But even at eleventeen below zero the squirrels are getting quite squirrely. I’m always afraid one will run up my leg and bite me when they’re doing their insane sex-chasing up and down trees.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The only thing nicer than cavorting bunnies is stewed bunny. Shame to let fresh roadkill go to waste.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Vincent, spring is a peculiar mix of the delicate and robust; shy peeping and loud garishness. Check out this poem from my friend, the amazing Anna (Apprentice) over at My Gap Year. I can’t find the permalink for the post but it’s on her Thursday Feb 7th post under the video. She captures all the boldness and vibrancy of spring.
Carolyn, see now I like the winter. Every day now for the rest of the year I am going to have to slather myself in sun-repelling unguents which will oil up my clothes and my hair and I don’t like it one bit. And there’s the hot chocolate factor when it turns chilly.
Fmc, daffodils with their bright yellow trumpets are the perfect example of bold and garish spring. “I’m here, and you can’t ignore me! Woohoo!” Vibrant and strong – ah yep, the sap is rising.
Pat, Eskimo bunnies do. I recorded the Baftas to watch later. I’m guessing Atonement cleaned up, oui?
JenPen, your winters are so extreme you must feel the joy of spring all the more when it comes. It’s in the air – the animals are at it like it’ll be banned tomorrow or something. Last night I was up with insomnia for a while, and listened to a pair of lusty raccoons courting for about half an hour. I swear, if all the love in the air could be visualized, there would be showers of little love hearts popping over all the bushes.
Sneezy, I’ll keep my eyes open for you, hun. All notion of traffic awareness has gone out of their silly wee heads as they get high on luuurving. There should be a good harvest on the roads in the next few weeks. Does it have to be rabbit though? I’ve seen a still quite rounded possum already this morning. How lucky are opossum paws, dyou think?
birchsprite, if I can slow down office productivity in any way I’m happy to do it. I’m an anarchist housewife. The undermining of our social and economic mores is what I’m all about, baby.
Little Beags, you’re right, squirrels have no manners, have they? No sense of place and hierarchy and the rudeness of running up people’s trousers, cheeky wee buggers that they are. Whatever happened to running awa as a human approached? They’re more likely to pelt you with nuts and call you rude names these days. I blame video games.
Caro, not long ago there was a bunny on the road on our way to kindergarten. Every time a car drove over it’s ears they would spring back up with a tragicomic boing. it was very affecting. I expect someone made a short artistic film about it in black and white with their new Christmas digital video recorder and editing suite. We can all be minor Fellinis in this brave new world!
February 11th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Brilliant ditty Sam …are you sure you don’t want to make a career penning pop lyrics? I love bunnies too. I remember visiting my aunt’s farm in Austria and sticking all the baby ones up my sleeves where they’d fall asleep. Bliss!
February 12th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
It’s been delightfully spring-like here today. I’ve been trapped inside with a bucket and mop but I opened the windows and it smelt like spring. And it didn’t begin to get chilly until well after four and it’s still daylight now! I love February for the noticeably lengthening days.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Emma, up your sleeves? That is strange and beautiful all at once, but there’s no denying its strangeness. If someone were to hand me a career corrupting pop ditties my cup would runneth over and I would be arrested because we’re not meant to waste water in California.
Eryl, you know what, you have spelt smelt there in exactly the way I have always spelt it and therefore, to my mind, the correct way. But my yankee spell checker draws angry red lines all over the shop when I write it, insisting it should be smelled and spelled. I shall always spelled though, and I shall always smelled. Each of us must find our little comforts in life, our small ways of holding out. There’s no point in trying to be reasonable and telling me that spelt is a grain and smelt is a fish. I won’t listen to you. I’ll be out in the garden yelling “tom-ah-to” at passers-by.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
That is a fantastic post- and that’s before the Grease parody.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Bless you, Sam, we ought to trade spell checkers. Mine goes wild when I put the Z in organize and only shuts up when I give it an S. I still treat the past of ’smell’ as a strong verb with an -ed ending, but I think I’ve been turned on ’spelt;’ this makes me think more of stringing together bits of the alphabet than it does of the fishies in the sea. Worrying!
Your lyrics are just great, and you had me laughing! I’ll never look at Olivia Newton John again without picturing a randy bunny in spandex throwing come-hither looks at boy bunnies. Of course I’m hoping never to look at Olivia Newton John again anyway, but at least I’ve got a humor buffer if it happens by accident. (Note spelling of ‘humor:’ there’s Yank left in me yet!)
February 12th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
It’s difficult to remember the results because they were different to what one expected. Atonement got only 2 awards. I would have given James Mcavoy one because he’s sweet and although Dan Day Lewis is wonderful he’s also a bit of an old ham.
The girl who played Piaf got best actress and made me want to see the film as I have a long felt soft spot for Piaf. I was sad Julie didn’t get an award.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Bad Ambassador – what Grease parody?
Mary, keep that yankee kernel, baby – don’t let the Scots gloom creep in there to rot it! I love Grease though, I confess – I liked Rizzo the best “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee, Lousy with virginity”.
Pat, definitely try to see La Vie En Rose – it’s a fantastic film and Marion Cotillard is incredible. She’s at once charming and vulnerable and nasty and shrewish but there’s no escaping the tragedy of her. She was tiny and tragic right from the beginning and continued to be so in different ways through out the film. I bawled. I think she’ll go down in film history as being the definitive Piaf. I reckon the BAFTA’s well deserved and I’ll be rooting for her come Oscar time.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hares and wabbits abounding this morning. Hard white frost with a mist over and, if yesterday’s a good guide, the promise of 17+ degrees by mid afternoon. I feel like a bear blinking outside its cave, and stre-tch-ing.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Since my thought process is strange, the mention of a song from south Pacific reminded me of one of my favorites, “They’ve Got To Be Taught’ which led to these tears in my eyes so if there are any typos here remember that it’s all your fault.
Oh – related to your post: I like bunnies. If I see one today, I’ll try to remember your song. (which is great)
February 13th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Ha! You crack me up you do… I just love the way your brain works!
February 14th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Hi Problemchildbride.
I didn’t go as mad as you think. That whole thread just took a life of its own as these things are wont to do. My only point was, why my signature (important) of Bald Devil loves you all, annoyed him so much. If you check the previous posts, you will see just how abusive he got towards me. He could have just ignored it but no, he chose to get aggressive with me. I fought back, he didn’t like it so he banned me – simple as that. You may be interested to read the post he left on my blog. He really is a charming chap.
Hope you never “annoy or anger” him as much as I did.
Nice blog by the way, I would never devote as much time to mine, just a lazy Devil I guess!
Bald Devil loves you all.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I use the ‘add to dictionary’ option often and now my computer accepts all sorts of interesting spellings. Smelt and spelt are both in the Oxford. Mary and I have the opposite problem, my spell checker always wants zeds when I want to use esses the treacherous traitor but I’m whipping it into shape.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
‘Bunny rape, too doped to escape’
That is the funniest thing I’ve ever read. No wonder they are so prolific. The poor little bunny gals don’t stand a chance!
February 15th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Harold was seduced by my rabbit stew, which was the first dish I ever cooked for him. In France they sell them with the heads, Harold’s party piece was to fish the head out of the casserole dish and suck the brains out in front of all our guests.
To tell you the truth, I really don’t miss him much.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Those poor little bunny gals getting violently attacked by those randy bucks.
Now I know why they are so prolific!
February 18th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
thanks for the name check Sam. I posted before, but it got eaten in the ether again. I love this piece, it brought a great big cheesy smile to my face.
We have moles going mad underground looking for lurve and leaving we hillocksa all over the place!
February 18th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Funny stuff, Sam! I think I may be getting caught in your spam trap. Was it something I said?
February 19th, 2008 at 3:40 am
Conan, got pictures? It’s been a long time since I saw a hare. A blinking bear I’ve seen, since I’ve seen my last hare. Yawn and stretch, buddy – soak up the Spring and hie thee to Dublin on the 29th!
Jali, sometimes, through tears, I barely know what I’m typing out on the internet. It’s often only later that I realize I’ve typed out all my credit card details and ordered a whole heap of books on planetary movement that I’ll never finish. This is not apocryphal.
K8, you won’t be saying that as I propose chandelier-swinging at the irish blog awards. I don’t get out much.
Bald Devil, it’s not my business, however I still maintain Twenty has the right to decide what goes on in his own comment box, but I’ll give you this – at least you didn’t plagiarize like the snivelling little rat that was uncovered today over at Twenty’s. That happened to Sinead from Sigla blog and fmc too – in the last case it was a Sindo journalist who did the plagiarizing.
Eryl, and double elled travellers. Spell-check hates them!
Sugar Britches, I’m sorry! Yes! My spam filter somehow caught you by mistake. Thanks for stopping by.
Daphne, I wish I knew if you were joking, but it is the French and I haven’t yet heard the limit on what they’ll eat if the sauce is right.
Apprentice, “It’s a bold beastie that comes between a rutting mole and his maiden”. I’m sure it was Milton said that. Blind too, poor bugger. Knew his moles though.
Sugar Britches, see 3 comments up!