Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Sir Saffron Goes A-wooing: Happy at Last

When we left our handsome friend Sir Saffron back in March, he was hoping to find a new companion to lighten his existence (insofar as a spoiled rotten bunny’s existence needs lightening!) He met with some very handsome young ladies, as we saw in part one; though each of them was charming, none was quite right. It was time to go forth and meet some more damsels.

So Sir Saffron decided to hold an afternoon reception and invite all the fairest young bunny maidens to attend…well, really, foster bunny mom Terry from the House Rabbit Network actually brought three young ladies to meet Saffron at our house. With two of them, it was clear that a relationship would not work. But with the third…

Well, it was quite a different story. Sir Saffron and Miss Beans were clearly interested from the start. Picture Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle eyeing each other across the Meryton Assembly Rooms in Pride and Prejudice and you’ll get the idea. There was a great deal of sniffing and a lot of Saffron following the lovely girl bunny with amazing ears (she can let them flop down, or hold them almost upright) around the room as she explored…and then it started: the binkying. For those of you who do not speak Rabbit, I’ll explain: when a rabbit is very happy, it dances, leaps vertically up and does mid-air twists, shakes its head, and otherwise gambols about. This is called binkying…and when both Saffron and Beans started doing little jetés as they lolloped about the room, we knew this was it.

Miss Beans, who now goes by the name Beatrice (though we can’t help sometimes calling her the Beanie Baby!) moved in a few days later. According to her foster mom she was very, very grumpy during the interval, and Saffron himself seemed a little off. When we brought her in and set her in the temporary pen in the living room that she would stay in till she got used to the house (and until we were sure she and Saffron would be friends), she sniffed about nervously at first…until Saffron came into the room. For the next hour and a half he ran in circles around her pen, binkying…and when we let her out to interact with him, this happened: That's Beatrice presenting to Saffron...basically saying, "Take me, I'm yours!" And that's Saffron grooming the top of her head, basically saying, "Oh! Okay."

In a couple of days, we had this: So I think it's safe to say that for this little story, there is a very definite ending: and they lived happily (and hoppily) ever after.

8 comments:

mary sullivan said...

What a charming story, Melissa. They are both such beautiful bunnies!

Gio said...

Aww so cute!

Marissa Doyle said...

Thank you, ladies! It's totally cute overload with the pair of them around the house.

QNPoohBear said...

Hooray! I'm glad it worked out. Have you read The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter mystery series by Susan Witting Albert? This post could be a scene in one of the novels.

AnneB said...

I hate to admit this, but I had tears in my eyes by the end of the post!

Marissa Doyle said...

Awww, Anne. :) But I've teared up, too--it was so sad when he lost his sister last year--HE was lost for a while. So seeing how happy he's been is just a joy.

Marissa Doyle said...

And QnPoohBear, I'll have to check those out--thank you!

Tiya Harper said...

Hooray! I'm glad it worked out.