It’s a fertile era for rabbits in Belmont, and it takes little calculation to understand that there are more of them enjoying it. When we moved here 30 years ago, there was no detectable wildlife in the yard, though there were other signs of nature: rhododendrons everywhere, and the occasional charming bird singing somewhere in a tree. We hoped for nests and sweet chicks who would chirp musically. I bought a book of bird identification.
We knew that wilder animals lived farther away and higher up in another part of town; some coyotes, some raccoons, the wandering skunk or two. Living adjacent to but not in the midst of them felt simultaneously urban and rural. Could homeowners have been luckier?
Slowly—not for happy reasons, but because their own niches were encroached upon—those who lived farther away and higher up drew near. First, there were raccoons slinking across the lawn, tipping over pails on Garbage Day. I remember when one climbed up the front yard tree and gazed down for hours without much expression. It was kind of thrilling, though also unclear when, how and why it would come back down. Wild turkeys appeared next. They were deeply unappealing but also unfazed, meandering at glacial speed between cars, with no consideration for the four-way stop.
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At last, the rabbits arrived; shy intruders at first, racing across the grass at dusk, full of fear that they might be visible. How sweet, we said: there is a little rabbit. One became two, two became nine. All our neighbors had gardens, but after a while, none of us had gardens. Chicken wire went up. Cayenne powder was poured over flower bulbs. Rabbit self-production increased.
Now they lope in broad daylight, alert to sudden movement but unsettlingly calm. Sometimes they rest on their haunches in full sight and take a few leisurely mouthfuls of my plants. It is not clear to me anymore who owns my yard—or, for that matter, who owns the entire town. And, a naturalist aside: the rabbits and wild turkeys don’t seem to bother one another, they only bother us. In this way, their different species have something in common, and you could say they’re sharing a niche. I don’t know who I prefer less.
But because of them, the rest of us also have something in common now. These days the neighbors no longer talk about children and grandchildren, and we never talk about what we’re trying to grow, because that would be salt in the wounds. Conversations are sympathetic, filled with stories, each illustration worse than the last: beheaded flowers, decimated vegetables, violence in the kingdom.
Most summer evenings, I sit on the top step of my porch and look down at my flowers. A rabbit is usually sitting at the bottom of the steps, looking up. We gaze together, one of us worried, the other ready for its first course, both of us understanding that this is the new Now.
Elissa Ely writes about seniors/baby boomers for The Belmont Voice. She is a community psychiatrist.
