Bunnies

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 30, 2014

We seem to always have one baby bunny in the Mitchell House yard. 2014’s baby has been a bit more respectful of the garden then his predecessors. He did not mow down all the morning glories like one of the baby bunnies before him, nor did he munch his way through the nasturtiums.


What he did do was create a burrow under one of the rosemary plants that we have had growing for several years out front. This rosemary has made it through quite a few winters, including the ten inches of snow we got this past March – that late blizzard that did in some of my own plants at home, including my Japanese anemones. So we shall see if his burrow harms the rosemary but so far, no harm done. He, like his friends before him, scoots between front and backyards one of two ways. He either nips under a portion of the House that is open underneath or he runs around to the front and goes under the front porch. The bunnies before him never really did that last route so I give him – or her! – credit for some intelligence on that. This bunny has an escape route! 

However, where he is lacking is in his danger instinct. He has become so used to us that he has now taken, especially with the last few really hot and humid days – the first of the summer but in September! – to sitting next to the hydrangea in the backyard of the House. He is just far enough away from the crawlspace to be where the air is better but close enough to run under. But, he just sits there. I move in and out of the Cottage, sometimes accidentally allowing the screen door to slip and slam and he just sits there. In this photograph, though it’s hard to see, he actually has his back legs crossed. He has an enormous grown up tail – he has not met it yet with the rest of his body size – and a beautiful white belly. I actually thought due to his calm and lazy demeanor that he was not feeling well yesterday as he did not leave the spot for several hours! But he was back at it again today so I took the opportunity to take this photograph of him. (I did not ask him to sign a release form.) He was there when I got in this morning and two hours later, he is still there just now facing a different direction. So, I think he is just too trusting of us. Not that we would harm him.


JNLF


Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger July 7, 2025
July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF
July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
Show More