A very special happy birthday to Jack
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!