The Rabbits

It's no secret that Richie and I love small town life. We got placed in the Salt Lake Valley and thought, hey, we can make do with this! Garden in: check. Clothes line in: check. With chickens, however, we ran into a problem. We know plenty of people in our neighborhood who have chickens. But when we did a little asking around, in the general vicinity of city hall, we found it's not technically legal to have chickens on your property in Riverton, unless you live on at least an acre. Bummer. (Let me give you a hint. We don't live on an acre.) So you know what we did? We stuck it to the man! Kind of! I started emailing city councilors, asking what the deal was, could it be changed etc. I was even told, off the record of course, that there's only 1 city inspector who investigates this type of thing, "so as long as your neighbors are ok with it and don't rat you out, no one will really know the difference." Hmmm...He was right, you know. But I guess the whole idea of breaking the law was kind of a deterrent for us. So I went and participated in my very first city council. I had been emailing one of the councilors back and forth for quite some time. He led me to believe that the change I presented was definitely going to pass, but that I should come to the meeting just to show support. So I did.

Imagine my surprise when the motion is open for discussion and person after person comes to the podium and passionately defends their opinion, both pro and con. "Man, I'm totally unprepared!" I think to myself. I hadn't prepared anything to say, but I got up there and gave my 2 cents. And then....the mayor stepped down from up above, and said he would be acting as a citizen in this matter and would like to state his case. He pulled a few typed pages from his jacket and proceeded to vehemently object to letting citizens have chickens on less than an acre, here in Riverton. Something about his daughter getting attacked by a neighbor's feral chicken years ago. Whatever.

And then the motion didn't pass. And now, we're still not allowed to legally have chickens on our property. Boo.

What was so appealing to us about having chickens on our property was the idea of self-sufficiency. If the world collapses tomorrow, at least we could eat eggs and chicken, you know? It's like living food storage. Alright, city council votes no, dream smooshed. And then, about 3 weeks ago, this crazy idea pops into my head. "What about rabbits?" They are not technically considered livestock, and therefore, could still be allowed on our "crummy" .23 acre property. Now, if you know me well, you know it takes me a long time to process things. I'm a slow thinker. So I brought the rabbit idea up to Richie and thought, "Maybe we'll get some rabbits next year." And then Richie calls me from work about 3 days later and says, "Hey! I've really been researching rabbits online, and I found the ones we want in Bluffdale. I can go get them tonight!" And he came home with 3 full grown rabbits. 1 male, 2 female, and presumably 1, possibly both of the females are pregnant. Ok. Deep breaths. This is what we wanted, my head just wasn't wrapped around it yet!

So we set up makeshift cages and let the kids run around with them. They were in heaven!! And goodness gracious, the rabbits are SSSSOOOO cute! Which might make it hard when it comes time to eat them, which we will do very sneakily, because the kids would need therapy for the rest of their lives if they found out.

The next morning, we're outside playing and my niece happens to be with us, while she passes through to SG from Rexburg. I head inside for about 2 minutes, when I hear Lindy crying. Nothing alarming, just a normal cry. Richie brings her in and says, "She stuck her fingers in the rabbit cage, and they nipped at her. Grab a band-aid." As I'm grabbing the aforementioned band-aid, Richie starts to run water over her left hand pointer finger and then says, "Oh man, we need to go to the hospital. Quick, put the band-aid on." And I go to put the band-aid on, and see the top of her poor little finger, just hanging there. I can't breathe! I can't put the band-aid on! I yell outside to Taysom, "You have Miles and Gwen? Ok, we're going to the hospital." And we RUN out the door. Richie's holding her in kind of a cradle-position, holding her finger away from everything else, in the backseat, and I drive.

I tell ya, the people at the insta-care that day.... We run in, cut in line, say, "Hey! Our daughter's finger got bit off!" And they say, "Ok, we just need you to fill out some paperwork and we'll put you at the top of the list." After waiting for 5 minutes an eternity, they take us back and tell us, "Ok, now we just need to weigh her and see how tall she is. Can you set her on the scale for me?" This is where I lost it a little bit. I shoot lasers out of my eyes at her and say, "Her finger is hanging there, can you just look at it and tell us if we can save it? Tell us if we need stitches? Before we do all this stuff? Please?" Another nurse comes over, unwraps the paper towel we had grabbed, cleans off some of the blood, and tells us that if it was her kid, she would take her up to Primary Children's in SLC because they can sedate her up there. (For some reason they can't here?) The minute I hear, "Primary Children's" I can feel all the blood rushing up to my head and making my cheeks red. Because that's the hospital where really serious stuff happens, so her finger must be really serious, right?

So we bolt out the door, and walk/run to the car. I'm crying, and as I'm about to reverse, Richie tells me to wait. He pulls off his ball cap, places his free hand on Lindy's head, and gives her a priesthood blessing. He especially asks that Lindy will be comforted. And you know what happened next? After crying, screaming and trying to wriggle out of his arms the entire time...she's out of it. She's not asleep, but it's like she's been sedated, and she's totally relaxed. Heavenly Father answers prayers. We also found out later that Taysom had helped the kids say special prayers at home for Lindy. I was so grateful Taysom was there, and that she taught my kids to call upon Heavenly Father in their time of need. It was a spiritual moment when we later testified to our children that Heavenly Father heard their prayers, and helped Lindy.

We eventually found the building we needed to be in, and the nurses there were so much more helpful. Richie runs inside, they see blood, they rush over to him and immediately assess. They are confident that they can save the finger and start the process. We spent about 6 hours there, and it seemed even longer. We felt such empathy for people who have actual sick children and that hospital is their life! They started out by bandaging it mo' betta (As Richie would say). Then eventually they put a blocker to numb only her finger. At the same time, they were trying to find a vein in her chubby little hand, and blew the vein. Eventually they found one in her foot, but my, was that a traumatic experience. It took both parents and 2 nurses to hold her down. Then they x-rayed her finger to see if the bone was broken, which thankfully it wasn't. Then they sedated her and stitched her up. After the anesthesia wore off, we were free to go home.

During this time, Taysom had a shuttle to catch with no one to drive her there. Not to mention, two small children at home with no guardian. The Garners were at a funeral and unavailable. I immediately called Scotty and Lisa, our next door neighbors, who have saved our bacon on more than one occasion. Without hesitation, Lisa took Taysom to the shuttle and their daughter Dani came over to watch the kids. When the Garners were done with the funeral, they came and picked up the kids and watched them the rest of the day.

Whew, so many words! Her finger is fine. It hasn't phased her one bit. We are so grateful for kind people, for knowledgeable doctors, and the power of prayer and the priesthood. The End.

Here's a few pictures of the rabbits and their new home. Honestly, this incident aside, it's been so much fun having them. They run around all day until it's time for them to go back in their cages, and the kids feed them our scraps and follow them around all day. I swear it's made Ozzy 10 years younger. He gets such a kick out of playfully chasing them around the yard.

One step closer to a country life. :)