Snowy surprise

We see them mostly in the empty fields over by our new church. Hundreds of them, laying in the fallow fields, the lucky ones at least. Others succomb to the wheels of passing cars, or the hunting prowess of the hawks that circle the fields.

At first glance you may mistake them for a rabbit or a bunny of some sort. But they aren't. Look closely and you'll see the long and floppy ears that look too big for their heads, and gargantuan feet of equally disproportionate size. They are white jack rabbits, or hares. The difference between a hare and a rabbit is that a hare's babies are born with fur and their eyes are open. Rabbits are born without fur, and their eyes are closed, leaving them dependent on their mother's care for awhile.

Ironically, I wanted pictures of the snow falling as big fluffy flakes floated down from the sky. But when Colton and I looked at the pictures we were shocked to see a jack rabbit nestled next to the neighbor's fire ring.  We set out to see if we could get closer to it and as we did we were even more surprised to find three others lying under the branches of the evergreen tree.  We were still yards away when they heard our crunching boots in the snow and they scattered.