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A very special happy birthday to Jack
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August 27, 2012 |
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By Mike Weland
 This
website is a serious journal dedicated to
providing accurate news and information of and
of interest to the people of Boundary County,
Idaho, an on-line "newspaper," if you will, to
those people around the world who have an
interest in this small piece of the world.
This article belies every intent and purpose we
who created it aspire to; it's not about anything
remotely connected to Boundary County;
I can't even figure out how to tell it without
injecting myself in first person.
It's my hope that the readers of these pages,
particularly the many I met in the rabbit barn
at the Boundary County Fair, will like this
story enough that it won't be held against me.
This
is the story of Jack, a rabbit celebrating his
first birthday deep in the heart of Texas. The
lady who ran over him with a tractor before his
ears were unfurled happens to share a relatively
rare last name with me, "Weland," though it's
unlikely we're related. I have to admire her
heart, though.
 Melinda Weland Davila lives deep in the heart of
Texas, in Bayview, and we met on Facebook thanks
to the obvious tie of our fairly rare family
name. I never knew I might have family
down that way; my end of the clan hail from
Missouri; I was born in Germany and my only
connection with the wild west was the fact that
my dad retired from the Army in Fort Sill,
Oklahoma.
I went through high school there, and learned
that Oklahoma is a great place to be from ...
far away from.
So
now I'm a reporter in Idaho, with a Texas friend
on Facebook.
 She said it's Jack's first birthday today, and
posted a picture of a jack rabbit, an elusive
species with which I'm familiar ... rangy, sly
and not susceptible to fitting in with people,
though Jack is obviously fitting in more than well.
I've raised rabbits, plump, fluffy and content,
and as a boy in Oklahoma, I chased jack rabbits.
I never caught one, but they seemed to be having
as much fun as me, cutting back and running
between my legs, standing up and seeming to
laugh as I spit out grass and dirt and got up to
resume the chase.
I was shocked to see Melinda's pictures of Jack.
Turns out, Melinda was out running the
tractor when she saw a baby bunny unable to
move, and she couldn't stop the machine in time.
Most farmers keep going, but not Melinda. She
shut the machine down, ran back, bundled up the
bunny and took him home.
Jack got better, and took over the house.
His house.
He tolerates Melinda and her family. It appears
he keeps
them around because he thinks they're cute.
He celebrated his first birthday today, one year
from the day he was hurt, nursed back to health
and transformed from wild Texas hare to
perfectly happy home bunny. Melinda didn't say
whether or not she baked him a cake, undoubtedly
carrot if she did, but from the tone of her
Facebook posts, they held quite a celebration.
Happy birthday, Jack ... and it's nice to meet a
new member of the family! |
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