[Downthestretch55]

Where the heck did all these rabbits come from?

For those that haven't tried rabbit, I'll just tell you that it's really pretty good "eats". I have a cottontail in my fridge that I intend to stew up in wine for tomorrow night's supper. No, it wasn't a "road kill" (though I've gained a few that way). My friend, Ken, dropped it off as it somehow stumbled into one of his beaver sets. No beaver (shucks), but a bunny is fine.

The rabbit story is about my brother, Gary. Somehow he got the great idea that he could make his fortune with rabbits. He must've read about it in the classifieds of "Boy's Life" when the Boy Scouts gave him a subscription.
He definitely took his business venture seriously.
Gary did lots of research to find the best breed, and settled on New Zealand whites. Let me tell you, those bunnies are beautiful, big, and...fertile.
So he somehow did a deal for two does and then found a buck from a different place, so as to avoid "inbreeding".
We worked together to build a nice hutch with a hardware-cloth bottom, water bowls, and nest boxes for the moms-to-be.
Before too long, there was a need to build a couple of more six room hutches for the does. This, despite all the rabbits the family could eat twice a week, different recipes, he was now up to fourteen does and the buck.
I'm not too sure he knew what he'd gotten himself into. The hay and rabbit pellets were looking to consume all of his available funds, so he did his best to find a market for the bouncy whites. Frantic phone calls to restaurants near and far, and selling them "ready to cook" for a very narrow "profit margin" gave him something to take up his time long enough for still more bunnies to show up. He supplied restaurants all along route 28 between Kingston and Arkville, some in New York City, people that came to the house, and still there were more rabbits.
I was getting tired of helping him build hutches, so we decided to buy mesh fencing and wall off a big circle in the middle of the barn.
The bouncy things filled that up too.
I'm telling you, it was becoming a "WAR on RABBITS".
They just kept coming despite everything we could do to get rid of them, kill them, eat them. Feeding them was bankrupting Gary.
Well, the story ends when he finally decided to fill the freezer with everything he'd invested, besides those that didn't fit that he gave away (about 100), and all those that had "escaped" to the apple orchard where Bugs, Peter, and their girlfriends lived on for two more years.
Well, many years later, we still get together and laugh about his "business venture". And we still both enjoy a nice rabbit dinner, though we should be sick of eating them by now.
So when he invited me over to his place for supper last week, and I pulled into his driveway, guess what was bouncing in the headlights...
Yup, two giant white long eared critters.
I laughed so hard that tears were coming down my face, He must have seen me sitting there trying to gain my "composure". He came out on to the porch and said, "Come on in!"
I said, "What are they?"
He said, "My new bucks, Sadr and Al Queda."..."I have four does in the shed too."
Shaking my head, I went inside his kitchen door.
Some people just never learn, especially where all these rabbits come from.
You'll never guess what we had for supper.