Yep, we got the storm of wintery mix and cold. The kind of storm that gives us all the perfect excuse to snuggle in with a favorite book, or spinning, perhaps some time with the knitting, sipping a nice hot something. Maybe even a roaring fire in the fireplace, good company, a hearty pot roast simmering on the stove. Weather that is meant to keep you indoors. Unless you have a mischievous bunny who figures out in between storms how to open her door and what to do with that open space (jump through it of course). A white bunny who blends in with all that snow. Yep. Little Lorelei, only about 4 months old, full of curiosity, did exactly that. Saturday morning before the final bit of snow clearing from Thursday's storm, she scampered off leaving foot prints that somehow just disappeared. Like perhaps a hawk swooped down and snatched her. I searched my entire yard, pulled apart the pile of broken limbs from the ice storm a while ago, dug up tarp covered things that might offer refuge hide a wee bit of bunny, even lay flat on my belly in the snow to try to peer under the shed. No. bunny. And no new footprints. Then some prints showed up in my immediate next door neighbor's yard, leading to the house next to theirs. I couldn't see the prints clearly enough from my deck to decide if they were bunny prints or squirrel or even the cat from several doors down. Only one thing to do. Go meet the new people who's house the prints lead to. Imagine opening your door to a bedraggled stranger with hay and twigs and maybe bits of ice stuck in her hair, possibly bunny poop stuck to ragged mittens, and this strange person says hi, I'm your neighbor and I'm looking for my rabbit. Turns out the new neighbor is an animal lover. She hustled me right into her house and out the back door because her dogs would let us know if there was a bunny hiding in the back. Tiny dogs not big enough to hurt the bunny. But. No bunny. I hoped Lorelei would show up for evening feed. But Saturday was a noisy day here, with the daughter's boyfriend finally moving big stuff like furniture into the nearly completed lower level of my house. So no bunny at supper time. No bunny in early evening. No bunny as midnight approached, bringing the first snowflakes of the predicted messy stuff. By morning, the storm abated a bit and I hoped to find at least bunny prints in the fresh snow before the ice hit. But still, no prints and no bunny. And the storm continued. When the assorted wet and icy stuff finally stopped falling, we had no choice but to turn on the snowblower, knowing the noise would keep a frightened bunny firmly in hiding, hoping she was in fact just hunkered down for the duration and not sustaining the local hawks or coyotes. Around 9 pm Sunday, with Lorelei gone for over 40 hours, I let the dogs out for a potty break while I turned on a movie, knowing the longer the bunny stayed away, the less likely she'd turn up. And then came a sound I never thought I'd celebrate. That gawdawful high pitched piercing shriek that makes the long buried dead cringe deep in their graves. That noise that makes my neighbors check on their own pets to see if one is being tortured. That noise that tells me Molly has spied a critter scampering beyond her reach. And at 9 pm, it's not a squirrel triggering her noise. I bolted outside without even stopping for a coat. Yes! At long last, the errant bunny, her no longer white no longer fluffy soft coat clearly visible in the light, packed with all manner of dirty wet detritus and ice lumps. As she sought refuge in the bushes once again. No doubt fleeing that awful noise. I packed the dogs back into the house, grabbed 
a carrot and a jacket, hollered for the daughter and quietly slipped back out to the bushes. "Come bunny" as she slowly hopped just out of reach and under low hanging icy branches. And then she said oh, hell. It's cold and wet out here. She turned and looked at me. Waiting. I picked her up.
