Raising Hare

“It seemed impossible that the fragile animal at my feet could survive by itself in a landscape teeming with dangers including foxes and the hawks I often saw hovering close to the ground before closing their winds and dropping like stones onto their prey. The leveret had no protection against these earth-dwelling or sky-borne killers. However, I knew that human interference could do more harm than good, so I decided that I had better let nature take its course.”

Chloe often muses about the impact that humans have had on hare populations. Here, she hesitates to touch the leveret because she fears that her scent might lead the leveret’s mother to reject it. Knowing that even her best intentions might cause the young leveret’s death, she initially decides to leave the hare to its natural fate.

“In all his years of working on the land, he had never heard of anyone successfully raising a leveret. ‘You have to accept that it will probably die from hunger or shock,’ he said. I’ve met people who reared badgers and foxes, but leverets cannot be domesticated.”

Chloe does not want to let the leveret die, but as she nurtures it, she remains mindful that it is a wild creature. In this instance, The Challenges and Rewards of Caretaking mean accepting that the leveret will never be a pet. She does not attempt to domesticate it or even give it a name. Accepting that the leveret will interact with her only on its own terms, she does her best to prepare it for life in the wild.

“I listened to the landscape. It was quiet enough to hear the thrum of wind over the ground, and the boom as it struck the wood. Quiet enough, during lulls in the wind, to hear the call of individual birds. It was a soundscape of sky and timber and earth.”

Although an avowed city dweller, Chloe finds life in the countryside soothing, enjoying The Therapeutic Effects of Nature. She re-kindles her childhood appreciation for the flora and fauna surrounding her converted barn, and spends more time reflecting than she did pre-pandemic, when the pace of her life was much more hectic. Here, she observes the difference between outdoor and indoor sounds, and vows to remain as quiet as possible in the house so as not to scare the hare and to recreate its natural