The Rabbit and The Circle of Time

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Much of the timekeeping that goes on in the desert takes place at night. Scattered throughout the golden sands are small timepieces that mark the passage of the evening. During the quiet parts of the night when the stars are slowly making their way through their appointed rounds, displaying for all who care to look the celestial passage of the heavens, a slight wind makes its way across the desert floor. It stirs the simple timepieces to life and begins the record of the passing hours.

The various timepieces that have been selected by Mother Nature are slowly rotated in place marking the nights passage for all the land dwelling creatures to see. The circular pattern created mimicking the heavens rotation by leaving the faint trail in the sand. This morning as the newborn sun rose to cast its morning shadows on the sand, a rabbit has passed by checking to see how long it would be until there was full sunlight and it should be hidden safely away before the coyotes come near.

Soon the heat of the day will bring its soaring temperatures and with it a stronger wind that will quickly erase the sand drawing made overnight. The day will pass with the measured slowness of the turning Earth and soon night will fall again and a new record will begin. If he was lucky the rabbit will be back and stop to check the time once again before calling it a night.

Have Some Nice Rabbit Ear, M’Dear

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A few seasons ago I was fortunate (read really lucky) to find an open Great Horned Owls nest that was mostly unobstructed by branches, leaves or other things put there by the photo gods to make a photographers’ life miserable. The owlets are good-sized by now, it is early April, and they still need food to be brought in by their Mother. She works hard for her living (my apologies to Ms. Summers) and brings a variety of offerings to the nest. This morning they were extremely lucky because she brought in a nice fat rabbit. Their usual fare is mice or voles, sometimes a snake and on the rarest of occasions a small peasant child. No wait, I made that up, this was supposed to be the April 1st posting.  She is very careful around the young ones and feeds them in a delicate almost refined manner. Not like the hawks and Eagles which look like they used a chainsaw to prepare their prey. The young however aren’t quite as refined and will grab a portion like this and force the whole thing down their gullet in one big gulp. It doesn’t take long for the rabbit to be totally consumed and after the owlets have stuffed themselves silly they settle down for a nap. It isn’t long before they’re up and at ’em again but Mother is done for the day. They’ll have to make due with whatever leftovers they find around the nest because she isn’t leaving again until dark.