A Strange Visitor Behind the Barn

Just behind our barn right beyond the perimeter fence that borders our little 5 acre property on the south is a little patch of woods.  We don't own it.  It is overgrown with privet, ragweed, Chinaberry trees, and dewberries and briars.  It's home to a bunch of squirrels, possums, snakes, and other critters.  Every year I go out back and chop a 5 foot clearing to keep the wilderness from encroaching.  

Things, as we see all around us, move from order to disorder.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics or Law of Entropy states that when left alone in natural states, eventually everything goes back to disorder.  We see that played out in society, in our possessions, and heck, even our bodies.  Clearing a swath beyond the fence is a small way to keep wildness at bay.  It may even keep critters from coming onto our land as they're exposed to hawks and other birds of prey.

I always glance out back.  There's no telling what you might see.  Yesterday, I saw a strange sight indeed!

I couldn't believe my eyes!  A black rabbit!!  Now we have our share of cotton tail rabbits.  We've talked about them from time to time.  They got into the garden one year and mowed down all of our snap beans.  But this rabbit was different.  I've never seen a black rabbit in the wild before.  I showed Tricia the photos and she actually saw it again today.

The rabbit is big and fat and healthy.  We even wonder if it was a domesticated rabbit that somehow got away or was turned loose, but none of our neighbors have rabbits.  I looked up on the Internet to try to learn about black rabbits.  They apparently are extremely rare.  There's even a lot of superstitious talk of black rabbits, but I'm not superstitious.

I stood there and watched the fellow (or gal) for a long time.  The rabbit was nibbling on some of the fresh growth I had chopped down.  As I tried to move closer, the bunny hopped away.  What a gorgeous sight to see.

As strange as it is, I like having this strange black rabbit around.  I hope the rabbit stays out of the clearing, though, as the black rabbit is not quite as camouflaged as the brown cotton tails are.  It would be easy to see by the hawks and owls that patrol the skies near the patch of woods.  As it hopped away, I noticed that it does NOT have a cotton tail.  It is jet black, except for one foot that was white, as if it had a sock on.