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Living in the country brings a person closer to the fact of living and dying. Caring for animals shows us how things can turn in the blink of an eye. We have raised a few baby animals that show up at our home. Some turn out great, others don’t make it.

Michala, the middle child, is not ok with the ones that don’t make it. She is tenderhearted towards all living things. Shay, on the other hand, has a real grasp on the circle of life. She understands that just because Daddy brought home a baby goat to bottle feed, doesn’t mean it will even make it through the night.

Shay is the animal lover in the family, always wanting to know if the new baby animal can sleep in her bed. (Side note: Shay is very allergic to animal hair, this has never stopped her from trying.) She is the first to get the cage or box that will house the animal for the next few days, weeks, or months. She is the first to move on if something bad happens.

Shay came running in the house, a couple of weeks ago, telling her brother that daddy had run over a nest of bunnies with the mower. I heard him say, "OK". He did not give her the attention she was wanting so she came to me and said the same thing. I was reading a book and halfheartedly inquired about the situation. She finally yelled, "Mom, look!" I looked up to find her little hands gently holding a tiny baby bunny. She also had blood all over those little hands. Needless to say, that got my attention.

She said "here hold this" and took off. So here I am holding a tiny baby bunny that was bleeding. Great! While I was in the middle of thinking of ways to kill my husband, in came Shay with another one. "Look, mom, here’s the other one!" What? Two baby bunnies. The second one was not bleeding.

They were then named, Thumper and Chewy. Thumper was named so, because he would not hold very still and Chewy got his name because he was found in the mouth of our black Lab, Buda. Shay tells me that Chewy made it because Labs have soft mouths for gathering birds. Just gotta love that kid.

Well, as the story goes, Chewy lasted a week, being fed with an eyedropper. When they came into our home neither of them had their eyes open. They had hair, or they probably wouldn’t have made it into my house. Chewy just didn’t make it and we had told Shay and warned Michala that he probably wouldn’t.

Thumper lasted a week longer. We also fed him with an eyedropper three times a day. We are not experts in raising baby bunnies. But we did, a year ago, raise one long enough to turn it back out, so the girls were a little upset that these two bunnies had died.

Shay was a little upset, only to ask when we would take her to the store to buy some more fish.