Hare Raising

The Boy made a flying visit to Ireland ten days ago. He was busy-bee-busy but we did make time to walk up the hill as far as the mountain gate. That was rather less straining than walking 160km through Southern France whc was our June adventure. He also mentioned that he'd followed up one of my book-recs and almost bought a copy of Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. The Running Hare:The Secret Life of Farmland by John Lewis-Stempel. Well, nope, the only thing in common between these two books is Hare. But, turning on a sixpence, I went to Borrowbox to find Raisin' available as both e-book and ear-book. By accident I downloaded both but sailed through the story mostly through head-phones, as I went about my Outdoor Man business.

Dalton was a senior policy wonk in London who had converted a barn down-country because that's what single people no kids do with their discretionary income. Then Coronarama found her lockdowned in her barn. A short time later, she was disturbed in her working from home by the din of a miscreant dog [Fenton Fenton FENTON! etc]. That same evening in the gloaming Dalton finds a neonatal leveret out in the open and elects to bring it inside rather than leave it for the fox. It was a snap decision which a) saved one hare b) wrought a huge change in Dalton's pandemic trajectory. It took about three years for her to come back to a hare-free existence.

Because that first orphan leveret was 'domesticated' to a bare minimum and allowed the run of the house, the enclosed yard, the wider garden and the great beyond. It wasn't until the wild cr'ature, now designated The Hare, returned to deliver a litter of three F1 leverets that Dalton discovered she had bottle fed a female. Because lifting the tail and inspecting down there seemed too instrusive and invasion on the leveret's right to privacy. A few months later, The Hare gave birth to two more offspr in Dalton's study! Who's invading privacy now??

It's much easier, and likely to succeed if an adult female hare is suckling neonatal leverets; starting from the immune boost of hare-colostrum. Hares, like some other lagomorphs, leave their progeny in a secure hiding place all day and return as darkness falls to gorge their infants in a single feeding session. Wannabee bottle feeders note that cows milk, while compositionally similar to human milk, is very different to that of lagomorphs - don't try that at home. 

All good fun, although the Dalton hares experiences their share of injury, sickness and death. I believe The Boy is going to try Raising Hare as a bedtime chapter book with his 9 y.o. Gdau.II although "I am aware I only have maybe a dozen books left before I stop reading to her" <snif>