Where Rabbits Run Wild | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Sunday is another time I love-especially the morning, when "Sunday Dinner" is cooking. I did not plan to write in the diary this morning, but when I had put the ham in the oven and stringbeans on the stove, all sorts of thoughts came to me. I realised it is just second nature for me, to write while I am cooking. Of course, it must be slow cooked food. I dare not cook bacon or biscuits, as such things are liable to burn, while I am "finding my words". Christian has learned to keep vigil over the stove, if I am writing. It is the same with music. Once, I was learning a new piece on the violin while supper cooked. My husband came in with a look of sheer panic. The house was filled with smoke and I had not even noticed! After that, he always said I would "fiddle, while Rome burned. " Jamie died in his thirties. Had he lived, there would have never been loose tin on the barns at the rabbit patch.

    I waited to fry the cornbread til Mama called and said they were on the way. Cornbread does not keep. I was putting it on the table when they came in. I made the pineapple dessert I had eaten at "Homecoming". I had guessed at the recipe, and it turned out anyway.

    Mama and Daddy left to go listen to music, played in a barn. One day, am going, too-but today, I cleared the table and decided I would mow. The grass has dramatically slowed down, but the weather was perfect and when I heard a neighbor start their mower, well that cinched it.

    When I went out, I would have sworn it was late March. The grass was tender and so green, beneath the leaves. The air was a little damp and cool. I saw a patch of clover by the stable and then caught a whiff of something familiar, but out of place. It was the wild honeysuckle. A few blossomed here and there- and I felt young again and drank the scent in, as if I was perished. I was really surprised to see a few apple blossoms, when I mowed in the little orchard - It seemed that there was quite a masquerade, on this day, at the rabbit patch.

    The french mulberry is dull now with muted berries and the autumn joy has stopped boasting altogether. I frightened the rabbit community when I took to mowing the wooded path. They scattered hither and yonder . How they run straight away into briers and bracken, at break neck speed is beyond me. The country rabbits are not friendly like their cousins in Elizabeth City, I thought

    I made good time mowing today. At last, a belt came off, and being almost finished, I didn't even try to repair it. As Cash and I walked back to the house, I made mental notes of things to be done before cold weather sets in. This is a lovely place I thought, as I looked around. It is hard not to feel a great affection, for a place you have tended for more than a decade. It is some sort of relationship. Is it because I have worked the soil- and I know where the wild violets will grow? The trees that give shade for the weary in July, are like old friends, now. The land has fed us too, and that makes a difference. Whatever was on my mind, the garden knew about it-and the "Quiet Garden" knows my secrets.

    Cash was so glad I was finished and he was "off duty". No rabbit got me this day! He ran and jumped around. I loved him for being so loyal, all over again.

    Tomorrow is Monday and that changes everything. I will drive past pasture and field, through the woods and into the small town, where I work. . .and at the end of the day, I will go back to the place I call home-an old house in the country, where rabbits run wild and an apple tree blooms out of season.

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