Robert P. Rabbit says, "Be clever like a Pheasant!"

Thank you for joining my blog. I hope you are having a really good day. 

There is a really beautiful bird that lives mostly in Northern and Western United States. It's called a Ring Necked Pheasant and it spends most of its time on the ground but if it has to fly it can certainly do so. And when it does it shows off its perfectly beautiful feathers for all to see. Actually, it's as big as your pet cat, so I'm amazed that it can fly at all. 

But the amazing thing about the Pheasant is that it is the trickiest, most cunning, shrewd and unpredictable critter the hunter and his dog has ever had to try and catch. It knows all the tricks at eluding those that are trying to get it. It stays low to the ground and runs back and forth at very high speeds, crisscrossing its trail to fool the dog, and sometimes staying so still a man can walk a few feet from it and never see it. When it decides to fly it takes off straight up with such commotion that even the most experienced hunters are so startled that by the time they realize it was there, the Pheasant is long gone. The secret to its success is that it seems to be able to anticipate what those that would harm it are going to do, and act accordingly. It is the Pheasant's alertness to danger that protects it. 

That's why your parents tell you to look both ways before crossing the street. They want you to think like a Pheasant to protect yourself from harm. So the next time you cross a street, pretend your a Pheasant. 

Keep your chin up

Robert P. Rabbit

Be Grateful for Everything, Even Bats!

I'm glad you joined my blog. I hope you are having a really good day. 

Once when GrandDad was pushing Katie and I around Tallulah Lake just about sunset, there were some bats flying around. They flew very fast and were constantly swooping down so close that GrandDad said he thought they would land in his hair. I hear humans say that all the time but I bet that never really happens. Anyway, Katie was very quick to say, "Granddad, you don't need to be afraid of bats, they are our friends."

"How do you figure that, Katie."

"Well, you are always telling me you don't like mosquitos and bats are flying around like that so they can catch and eat as many mosquitos as possible. In fact, they might eat their weight in mosquitos and other bugs every night."

If you are wondering how they do that, it's because a bat sends out ultrasonic sound waves that bounce off their prey, telling the bat not only where the bug is, but what kind of a bug it is --- and all this happens in a fraction of a second. And you know what? Bats have been doing this since the beginning of creation. Man just figured out how to do it in the last century.

I guess humans have a lot to learn from animals.

Keep your chin up. 

Robert P. Rabbit

The Most Amazing Bird in the USA

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you are having a really good day today. 

Do you know which is the most amazing bird in the whole USA? It is the humming bird. Why do I say that -- well it's because for one thing no other bird can come close to flying like it does. It can fly forward, backward and upside down; and it can stop in mid air and just hover. It can fly straight up like a helicopter, and it can reach full speed almost immediately upon takeoff. But to do this it has to eat a lot of food. In fact, if you weigh 75 pounds, you would have to eat 200 pounds of food a day to eat as much as a hummingbird eats in comparison to its weight. But there is one sad thing that can happen to a humming bird. When it reaches the place it will spend the Summer, it chooses one twig to stay on all Summer when not flying. It will defend its twig from everyone. But if the twig breaks off for some reason, the poor hummingbird is almost lost. It will come back as many as 100 times trying to land on the twig before it will finally choose another twig. Isn't that just like us? Sometimes we have a place we just like to be, and if someone else takes it from us, it's hard to adjust. 

Keep your chin up 

Robert P. Rabbit

Bison of the Great Plains

Bison on the plains

Thank you for joining my blog. I hope you are having a very good day. 

When I went out West with Katie and her family, one animal I saw for the very first time was a buffalo. Their proper name is bison. Buffalo are those big ugly things that live in Africa and are constantly battling with lions. Bison are beautiful creatures, are 6 feet high and 10 feet long, and can weigh as much as a car. But the problem with Bison is they are nervous, short tempered and don't see very well. Back before the settlers moved West and there were only Native Americans on the Great Plains of the United States, there were millions of bison. 

The bison provided food, clothing and even teepee coverings for the Native Americans. Bison made for a dangerous hunt because of their size so the Native Americans came up with a clever way to hunt the bison safely. Brave warriors would sneak inside the herd of bison and shout, scream and wave their arms in order to frighten one or two of the bulls, causing the entire herd to run from the danger as fast as possible in a stampede of thousands of thundering bison! Unknown to the bison the warriors would be driving them off a cliff but by the time they realized what was happening it was too late. 

I guess the moral of this is that sometimes it's not best just to follow the crowd. Make sure you are acting because you know it is the right thing to do, not just because it is what everyone else is doing.

Keep your chin up.

Robert P Rabbit

My Friend the White Tailed Deer

Thank you for joining my blog. I hope you are having a really good day. 

I've got something else to tell you about my friend, the white tailed dear. She actually likes to fish. No, I don't mean with a fishing pole. She does it in another way. Most of her food is twigs, mushrooms, acorns and even lots of mama's flowers. She chops all this up with her twenty four grinding teeth, and sends it all down to a place in her throat called her rumen. Then she goes an lies down until the food is digested, after which it comes back up into her mouth in the form of little cuds, which she chews up again and this time when she swallows it makes it all the way to her tummy. But when she fishes it's different. She walks up to the stream and stands real still. Then she waits for a fish to come close and she hits it with her paw. Once it is stunned, and can't swim away, she picks it up in her mouth and swallows it. It goes right to her tummy without going to her rumen.  It's kind of like a milk shake for you. There's no messing around with complicated digestion, melted ice cream just seems to go right down without a lot of fuss.

Keep your chin up

Robert P. Rabbit

Why You Should Always Listen to Your Mother

Thank you for joining my blog. I hope you are having a really good day. 

One of my good friends in Tallulah Falls is a white tailed doe. This spring she had a beautiful fawn she named Curious. That's because the fawn kept wanting to get up and look around all the time. Its mother made a wonderful bed for Curios in the meadow by Dirt Man's hut, and told her to stay down in the grass. She explained that her markings would keep her hidden from predators that would want to harm her, but if she moved around they would see her and attack her. But Curious kept getting up an trying to wander. Her mother had to come back 10 or 12 times a day and push her back into her bed. Sometimes she even had to put her hoof on Curious' back to keep her down, which was certainly uncomfortable for Curious. But one day, just as Curious was thinking about getting up to walk around, she decided she better not, since her mother didn't want her to, as just then she saw a mountain lion walking by just a few yards from her bed. If she had disobeyed her mother, the mountain lion surely would have gotten her. You know, maybe your mother is right after all.

Keep your chin up. 

Robert P. Rabbit

Robert P. Rabbit makes it to Bi-Lo Children's Charity Hospital and Camp Courage!

Wendy, Katie's mom delivering books to Camp Courage!

Last week we stopped by the Bi-Lo Children's Charity Hospital in Greenville South Carolina.  What a wonderful place! Cathy Howell, Director of Camp Courage, was there to meet with us and accept 250 books for the kids that will attend the camp over the course of the next year.  Of course, we left them books to hand out to the children who come to the hospital as well.  Thank you to a wonderful donor who funded this gift to Camp Courage in honor and memory of a special boy - Ethan Smith. Robert P. Rabbit is getting around!

Thank You from Cathy Howell at Camp Courage. You are welcome Cathy!

Thanksgiving

Thank you for joining my blog. I hope you're having a really good day.

Katie told me that we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving this week. I told her I did not understand. I asked her what is Thanksgiving?

Katie says that it is a day set aside to give thanks for all the blessings we have received over the past year. She says we celebrate by having a great big dinner with all the family there, and we are sure to eat much more than our little tummies can hold. That sounds exciting to me as it probably means I will get to eat as much Rutabagaas I want.
I asked her who started this thing anyway and she told me that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims hundreds of years ago who had a big dinner with a bunch of Native Americans to celebrate their friendship, and the bountiful harvest they had that particular year. These people kept up this practice for many years afterwards. Then it was started again by President Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s when he declared a day of Thanksgiving for everyone in the United States to celebrate. It wasn't just limited to the Pilgrims anymore.

One thing that is probably not so good about the day after Thanksgiving is that it is called by everyone "Black Friday". That is because it is the biggest shopping day of the year, a day that far too many people spend money they don't have for things they don't need. Some stores have figured this out, so in order to help people help themselves, they are going to be closed on Black Friday. Good for them.

Katie asked me to make a list of what I am thankful for, and at the top of my list is my family, then Katie, then granddad, then Will, and then all of Katie's family that are my new family. Next on the list is the story Granddad just wrote called "The Moon Rock Mystery". It comes out early in 2016, and you're going to love it. 

You know that's probably a good thing for everyone to do. Why don't you make a list of all the things you are thankful for and show it to your parents.

Keep your chin up.

Robert P. Rabbit

Greetings from Robert P. Rabbit

Thanks for joining my blog. I hope you are having a really good day. You want to know something interesting about us animals? We have what is called a sixth sense. We can tell if something is wrong, or if something is about to happen or even if a human is felling bad. Maybe you've heard of dogs that bark just before their master is going to have a seizure. Or cats that crawl under the sofa just before a big clap of thunder is about to happen. Well, I saw a special example this sixth sense once when Katie and her mama were in Florida at a place where children could sit on the side of the dolphin pool and feed those amazing mammals. With all the other kids the dolphins came up close only if the child had a fish to feed them, and then they didn't stay long. But Katie had just gotten settled in her mama's lap, up to her chest in the water, and she didn't even have a fish to feed the dolphin. But one of them came right up to Katie and rubbed his face against Katie's cheek, and let Katie kiss him on his nose. He stayed with her for as long as she wanted, snuggling up against her as if he knew she wasn't feeling well that day, and he wanted to comfort her, and for her to forget about the chemo treatments she had just had. It was his sixth sense that made him do this I'm sure.

Keep your chin up 😀😘

Robert P. Rabbit