Getting hopping mad over home improvement project

When we were young, my brother was gifted a pet rabbit that he named after his idol, film maker George Lucas.

My brother was very fond of Lucas the rabbit, but I never took much of a liking to him.

That’s because if I, or anyone else for that matter, happened to stick a finger in his cage he would be sure to take a nip at it.

This seemed a bit ungrateful to me, especially after my father and I had pooled our carpentry skills to build an outdoor hutch and caged-in run for him beside our Limekiln Lake house.

Despite his nasty antics however, I did worry about him in the cold of winter with only fresh hay and straw to keep him warm.

But that all changed after one particular incident.

It was mid-January and we had been experiencing a pretty severe cold snap. My brother had loaded up the wheelbarrow with some new hay to freshen Lucas’s cage, but he had some difficulty maneuvering it through the snow.

I offered to give him a hand and steered the load toward the hutch.

I instructed my brother to try to coax the rabbit to the run area so he wouldn’t get bit when he lifted the door open.

My brother gripped some lettuce in his mittened hand and threaded it through the chicken wire fencing in an attempt to entice Lucas from his lair.

But Lucas was as smart as he was mean. He knew it was no kind of day to be out in the run—no matter what kind of goodies awaited him.

“Just open the hutch and I will shoo him out into the run,” I said.

My brother said he was afraid that Lucas might try to get away, but he soon relented and slowly lifted the lid.

I looked inside but there was no sign of the rabbit among the old hay.

I reached into the darkness and there he was. He got a hold of my mitten as I tried to push him out the hutch door into the open.

It was quite evident that Lucas was not going to cooperate in the re-bedding process. My brother got all excited.

“You’re going to hurt him! He’s going to get out!” he shouted.

I finally pushed the feisty rabbit’s backside out the door and into the run.

There he sat with my mitten clenched between his teeth like some sort of trophy.

My brother and I went about the task of stuffing the hutch with enough fresh hay to assure the rabbit’s warmth.

But the job wasn’t done yet as I had to wait a while before I could safely reach in the trap door to retrieve my mitten.

Following that escapade, I never again worried about Lucas’s well-being.

Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake.ltmitch3rdny@aol.com