It's Wednesday morning, 5:00 AM.  I don't rise this early, anymore.  We defied bed until about 6 hours ago, so Nicole could snack prior to midnight-before-surgery.  Seconds ago I stepped into the shower, and am dripping wet.  Nicole yells, from downstairs, "India just brought a live rabbit into the house!"  I realize that I'm going outside in a very few minutes, damp, onto an ice-covered patio, likely with a rifle in one hand and a struggling, bloody bunny in the other.

Nicole sends India back outside, feeds the cats (keeping them closeted and happily occupied), throws an old towel over the now-motionless rabbit, and gives me the history as I dry & dress.  Good news: no blood!  Bad news: regardless, rabbit is clearly injured.  It righted itself, then moved several feet, but ended in the flop-roll of a damaged bunny.  Good news: rabbit didn't try to escape into the room/house-in-general.  Bad news: rabbit's position is about a foot from the outside door.  Nicole retrieves my work gloves from the basement while I check the rifle and plan.

Send Nicole to get ready.  Being late for surgery is not really an option.  Check the rabbit.  No evidence of breathing, no pupil-response to flashlight, no response to being uncovered or touched.  Rabbit is probably dead.  Re-cover rabbit.  Bring India into house and directly into crate.  Surprisingly, she's only slightly uncooperative about passing so near the rabbit.  Carry rabbit outside, into yard, away from house and fence.  Place on ground.  Use rifle to ensure rabbit is dead.  (Weird.  Fur conceals entry-wound completely.  Thought I missed, from inches away.  Lift rabbit.  Exit-wound is obvious.  Bunny is dead.  Good.)  Carry carcass well away from house, leave for crows & chickadees (Yes.  Those antic little bundles of black, white, & grey fluffy cheer will scavenge a corpse.  I suspect most seed-eaters will, especially in winter.  Fat & protein are fat & protein, after all.)  Trot back to house, slowing to cross snow-covered icy drive.  Shut the gate, re-enter the house, shed gear, safe the rifle, check the clock.  Ignore India whining from her crate, head back to resume an interrupted shower.

I should be glad for the lack of fuss.  No blood or entrails to clean from the carpet or furniture.  India ate none of the rabbit, so there will be no tapeworms.  No cats escaped or interfered.  I didn't have to restrain a struggling half-killed critter so I could finish it.  What was a simple rabbit, could have been skunk, porcupine, or even something dangerous like a rabid raccoon.  At worst, we must treat the animals with a flea-preventative.  Still, I'm unsettled and annoyed with the dog.  The morning was busy enough.  And I don't like killing things, or even guiltlessly shooting almost-certainly-dead animals to ensure they don't suffer.

India needed to go out, it was morning.  We're constructing a patio, just outside the door she usually uses.  So she had go to out the front, east-facing, door.  I ran for my camera.

Saw 2 Redwing Blackbirds today.  They're hanging around, waiting for the pond to thaw.  Three Sandhill Cranes flew over, on their way to Canada (or at least further north than here).  They're amazing to hear.

Trying an experiment, with my finch-feeder.  I mixed cracked sunflower nuts into the Nyjer.  I hope the nuts are small enough to fit through the feeder ports.  Nicole says, if I clearly, distinctly, obviously, and unmistakably label the container, I can keep live meal worms in the refrigerator.  I might be able to attract Bluebirds.  I've seen them around, but they don't come to the feeders.  Not interested in seeds.  I have some freeze-dried larva in one of the window feeders.  But it's not very enticing.  As the nice person at Wild Birds Unlimited put it, "Would you eat jerky if you could get a hamburger?"

We should have named the dog Houdini.  She escaped again, last evening.  I guess the good news is she didn't go through the new fence on the north side.  The 6x6s staked to the ground along the fence seem to be holding.  And she didn't dig out, so that's better than last year.  The bad news is that the lumber buried under the fence, to which the fence is stapled, is finally rotten.  She broke a 2-foot length off, at the staple line, and then pushed the fence up.  The tension wire is obviously wired to the fence material too infrequently.  Hopefully, if I add more connections, it'll hold against push-ups.  If not, I'll have to replace the buried wood.  I really, really, really don't want to dig all that up.