To Julie and Melissa who hated seeing us sad and were happy to see our joy return.
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My mom always told me that when she left this planet, she’d hang around and leave little signs that she was still near.

She’s done just that.

Soon after she left, my daughters Julie and Melissa and I began finding coins.
Lots of coins.

Everybody finds coins, right?
Lucky pennies?

But telling you HOW, WHEN and WHERE we find these coins, that’s the thing and it would take another story.

We often pull out our cameras and send each other pictures of where we find them.

Sometimes the coins accompany a story of why finding one in a particular place is so significant.

We three have no doubt that my mom is still around.
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The day we found a sweet little bunny munching on our backyard grass, I called my two daughters to tell them that there was a rabbbit in our grass.

Melissa living only ten minutes from us, was at our door in less than nine.

OK you may be thinking, big deal a rabbit in the back yard.
But, it WAS a big deal and this is why…..

In March of 2020, we said good-bye to our fourth and final furry-four-legged-family member, Sweet LooLoo.

The loss of LooLoo was our biggest heart-ache, much too big for the two of us to figure out how to handle.

We dropped down through the black hole of emotions and landed in sadness and grief.
And we were stuck there…..for a LONG time.

Covid kept us from spending time with our daughters which was lucky for them.

We were NOT enjoyable to be around but rather a couple of house hermits hiding from Covid and mourning the loss of our Sweet LooLoo.

The fun couple we were not.

We were lost and low and we couldn’t shake it.

BUT…..we were NOT getting another pet.
We’d talked about it before LooLoo left.
We were done.

We’d had four of the most awesome furry family members over the past thirty years but we’d decided no more.

We wanted to go the rest of the ride with the freedom of having no pets.

We wanted to be able to walk out the door and head out whenever we chose and not worry about our pets.

No more barely acceptable motel rooms because we had dogs.
No more extra fees because we had dogs.
No more sick or hurt dogs breaking our hearts.
No more vet visits.
And no more vet bills adding up over the years to be enough for a down payment on a house atop a ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean!

We promised each other we’d stay strong and stick to it…..NO MORE PETS.

However, there WAS one exception…..

Everyday I see stories on the internet about abandoned, emaciated, hungry, barely alive, horribly sad dogs.

They find their way to doorsteps where they’re taken in, cared for and become grateful, happy, healthy members of a loving family.

You must see those stories too.
They’re heart wrenchers.

One day when Julie and I were talking, I told her that if a dog, cat, or rabbit ever showed up at our door, I was bringing it in and keeping it.
Even a turkey.
If a wild turkey landed in our back yard and needed help, it was comin’ in.

However, I had no thought that it would really happen but then….. there it was, a teeny, round furry bunny, happily munching on our grass.
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We’d already checked with most of our neighbors except directly next door so Melissa decided she’d go talk with them and find out if they were missing a bunny and nope, no missing bunny there.

She began heading back when a force (my mom) made her look down to see a bright penny shining up at her.
She picked it up and came running inside.

“It’s grandma!
Grandma sent that bunny and she wants you guys to keep it.
Let’s call her Rita, after grandma’s middle name.”

OK.

And that’s how Rita Rabbit got her name.
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And so the two people who wanted no more pets became the people of a bunny.

But WAIT!

We didn’t WANT another pet!

We’d made a deal.

NO MORE PETS!

As I wrote in Part 1 of this story, we placed Rita in the Lost and Found of the neighborhood site with no response.

We tried to contact Roseville Rabbit Rescue but they’ve closed down….thanks to Covid.

Our final attempt was the Sacramento SPCA but their rabbit cages were all full and those rabbits looked so sad, I wanted to take them all home.
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We settled in with Rita Rabbit and things were actually going quite well.

Some part of every day Lobo and I sat side by side, and banged away on our lap-tops reading one HOW TO RAISE A RABBIT article after another.

Within a couple of weeks we were walking rabbit information wizards.

For instance, did you know;

that rabbits litter train themselves?
that they recognize their names?
that they become attached to their people and follow them around like dogs?
that they have amazing memories?
that they love to be petted?
that their teeth grow?
that they can learn tricks?
that they’re active early morning and at dusk but sleep all day and if you wake them up, they’re crabby?
and that they don’t BARK!
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Rita Rabbit has a roomy, luxury apartment and she seems to really like it.

We let her hop free every day, a few hours in the morning and then again in the evening.
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We THOUGHT we had everything protected.
Things that she might look at as chewy delicious.
BUT, one day I found her under the reclining sofa, munching away on the cords…..Nooooooo!

I grabbed her, put her in her apartment and went back to the recliner.

I pushed the button to make it recline…..nothing!
I pushed it again and again and again…..nothing, nothing, nothing.

CRAP!

I was irate.

Damn it, we didn’t want anymore pets and here we are with a wire chewing rabbit.

Why OUR backyard?

I called Julie to complain.
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Julie loves Rita Rabbit and I’ve seen more of her since Rita hit our yard than I have in 2 years.

Every chance she has, she’s here visiting and holding Rita.

And pretty much the same with Melissa.

Here’s a tip.
If you don’t see your kids much and they live near…..get a rabbit!

I told Julie I was rabbit DONE and gonna find another home for Rita.
I didn’t want her.

“YES YOU DO MOM, and you CAN’T get rid of her, grandma put her there.”

“NO, I didn’t want a rabbit!”

“MOM!! You told me if a dog, cat or RABBIT showed up at your door, you were keeping them.”

“Well WHO thought THAT would happen? Not me.”

“Tell me the truth, Julie. Did YOU put that rabbit in our backyard?”

“NO mom. Grandma did.”

“Well I’m gonna tell grandma that I don’t want this wire-chewing fur-ball.”
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I called Melissa.

“Tell me the truth, did YOU put that rabbit in our backyard?”

“No mom. Grandma knows how sad you’ve been. She put the rabbit there.”
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My sweet man heard me threatening to open the door and let that little buggar just hop away.

For the next two weeks, he spent his days blocking ANYTHING that looked munchable to a rabbit and also all spots where she could hop under and CHEW.

Every cord was encased in a plastic accordian style covering.

I watched Rita curiously hop up to one of the covered wires and in one quick chomp she was through the plastic.
So much for that.

Have you ever taken a good look at the huge beaver front tooth a rabbit has?
One chomp, that’s all it takes.

I don’t want a RABBIT!!!!!

But it seems that my sweet man does.

Our home is now so entirely rabbit proofed that I feel like I’M a rabbit!

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We remembered something that our new rabbit friend Christopher had told us.

He suggested that Rita be looked over by a vet and if she wasn’t already spayed, she should be.
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Locating a rabbit veterinarian wasn’t easy.
But we got lucky.

Dr Marianne Brick has been a vet for 25 years and specializes in RABBITS!

We made an appointment for our bunny’s physical.

In prep for the ride in the car, we put the carrying case inside her apartment so she could examine it and get used to it.

We were worried it might scare her but quite the opposite.

She took a quick look inside and then hopped up on top.
She liked it.
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On appointment day, Rita was happy to hop inside the carrying case and seemed unaffected by the car ride.

She was first examined by the Tech who so gently handled her and noted the history we’d given her.

When Dr Brick entered the examing room, she picked up Miss Rita and told us that she was a lovely bunny.
She did a exam and Rita scored a FIVE.
Five being the highest number, meaning excellent physical condition.

She showed us how to clip her nails…..we’re NOT doin’ that and she showed us how to clean her ears once a week and we’re NOT doin’ that either.

I don’t mean we’ll neglect her care, WE’RE just not doin’ it ourselves.
She’ll go to the groomers.

Dr Brick estimated that she was just about nine months old, weighed in at 2 1/2 pounds, was full grown and gave her a one year birthday of March 20th.

She flipped Rita over to check her belly and to see if she’d been spayed yet.

And THAT’S when I saw it.

It was pink and teeny tiny.

I looked at my sweet man with big eyes and then I asked the already ovious question, “is that….um, is that?”

“YES” came from Dr Brick.

“Rita is a BOY!”

Oh my gosh, we’d never considered that our little girl bunny was a boy.

Now what?

We made an appointment for HIM to be fixed and immediately changed HIS name on HIS records to “BOY RITA.”

And we went home to deal with the loss of Miss Rita and the reality of BOY RITA.
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Both girls called to hear how it went.
Was she for sure a girl they wanted to know?

We decided it would be more fun NOT to tell and have a gender reveal party at Melissa and Marks’s that Saturday which happened to be Christmas Day.
So we fibbed and continued to call HIM, HER when either girl was around.
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One afternoon Melissa stopped by to visit…..not US but RITA!

We’d just returned from shopping for a rabbit bed.
What we found was perfect.
It was small and round, white and bunny soft just like he was.

We put it in the middle of the floor so (Boy) Rita could see it.
He saw it alright.
He pounced on it.
He grabbed ahold of some of the fur in his mouth and began…..how can I say this?
There’s no other way to tell you…..He began humping his new bed!
He wouldn’t stop.
He was in love with his bed.
He must have thought it was a bunny?

Missy was hysterical and pulled out her cell phone and began making a video of what was going on.

“Mom! She’s humping that thing.”

“She is” I said “but I just read on the computer that girl rabbits do that too.”

Later Melissa confessed that she had believed me!
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The moment Melissa left, I called the vet to see if I could change his appointment to an earlir date.

Seems those two rabbit’s feet brought me luck….. there was an opening the very next day.

The next afternoon we dropped off our little girl bunny and later picked up our neutered little boy.
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On Christmas day, when we were all gathered around the table, we broke the news and my two girls howled with laughter.

We had really fooled them.
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One day while Julie was visiting Boy Rita…..NOT us, she began calling him Stuart as in Stuart Little the adorable little cartoon mouse.

And so little rabbit has gone from Rita to Boy Rita to Stuart Little and seems unaffected by it all.
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Stuart has been a part of our family for three months now.

We don’t feel lonely and lost any longer and our sadness is gone.

That little two and a half pound ball of fluff is a clown and he makes us laugh every day.

If you ask me, I’ll still tell you that I don’t want a rabbit.

And I’m almost afraid to look out into the yard any more.

My mom may very well have placed that little bunny in our backyard but it was LooLoo who sent her back with the JOY that we’d been missing.