In spite of all the books and videos and films of violence among animals, the law of tooth and fang and their continuous struggle for survival, against one another, and especially against the human race, I see the animals around me achieve great peacefulness at times, they are capable of great stillness and what sometimes seems to be deep contemplation, perhaps through the amazing instincts.

It is not all scrounging for food, running for their lives, although animals who live outside of farms and homes are likely to die hard and violent deaths.

But there is also peace and adaptability. Over the last several weeks, Fate and a grown rabbit have become quite involved with one another. Every time we leave the house, especially at night, Fate will bark and take off in pursuit of a grown brown rabbit, he or she lives close to the farmhouse, perhaps in the gardens in a den or burrow.

Their confrontations are becoming more intense, even intimate. Last night, Fate almost stepped over the rabbit, who was sitting perfectly still, as rabbits will when threatened. Fate barked, and the rabbit took off, running rapidly in circles, zig-zagging back and forth as Fate gave chase.

Fate is a chaser, not a hunger or killer, she is no more fierce around the rabbit than she is around the sheep. If she gets too close, I call her off and she stops, and no hunting dog with prey drive would respond. I noticed that Fate loves to chase after chipmunks and mice in the woods, but never catches one or comes all that close. Fate looks fierce, and puts on a good show, but I don’t think she really wants to catch anything.

She never has, and she is agile and has remarkable instincts.

The rabbit is, I suspect, the mother of the family of baby rabbits born in our back yard this summer.

One by one, the barn cats picked off the babies and left them on the back porch, it was hard to see. This might be the mother, still here and not, it seems, inclined to leave. If Frieda were alive, the rabbit would not be, she would have torn up the whole yard by now, she was a hunter.

I think this rabbit has a good life here, there is plenty of fresh hay in the barns, lots of secure places to burrow and hide. She is, we think, too big now for the cats to go after her.

She seems to sit out in the yard every night, almost waiting for Fate, and the two go round and round a bit, then the rabbit ducks under the pasture gate and runs into the pasture.

Fate has a good time. Sometimes I look out the window and see the rabbit sniffing around the back yard, sometimes she (I think it is a she, for some reason) sits out and takes in the sun, just like the donkeys and pony and sheep do. There is a peacefulness about her life, and she seems to be careful around Fate, but not panicked enough to move or hide.

That seems to be okay with Fate, a true obsessive. If she really wanted this rabbit, there would be no peace. But I sense the rabbit has a peaceful life, and perhaps even a safe one. That may be a projection, the story I’d like to believe rather than the one that might truly be true.

Rabbits, like chickens, are food for almost every other animal and big bird, from hawks to owls.

I think violence and death are an integral part of their lives, as they are for mice and moles. Maybe Fate just keeps her on her toes. Maybe she is looking for her lost babies. Interesting how I am already writing stories for her. I can get a photograph of her tracks, if it snows again, but it’s hard to get a photo of her, we only really see her out in the yard at night, not in the daylight.

The only time I saw her in the daylight was when I saw her running into the tall grass in this photo. I was perhaps distracted by the beautiful sky and missed the photo.

Mother Rabbit, as I already call her,  might be adventurous, even savvy, but she is not dumb. I’ll stalk her a bit with my camera.