Illustration by Cayla Kushner
It is September now. Emily had her bunny babies. There are five of them. Three of them have brown fur with white spots and two of them have white fur with brown spots. They are so soft.
They didn’t even have fur when they were born. Emily made a good nest for them with hay and her own fur that she pulled out. That is what girl rabbits do. They are born with extra fur on their chest just for this, when they need it for babies.
They were small like mice and pink and wiggly at first. You could tell they were rabbits because of their big ears. She fed them her milk until they could eat hay and greens.
Bella and I asked Emily how we could help her with all the bunny babies. She said just help teach them what is safe and not safe. We smelled noses with them and told them they can’t go exploring so much because of dangerous things like cats and monster mice. When they were little we kept telling them to stay close to home and just be with Emily and Hugo. We made up stories about the predators and scared them a little so they could understand.
It was fun to see them when they learned to hop. There were two days when all five bunny babies learned. They were hopping and hopping all at the same time and it was hard to keep them close by.
When they got bigger, Sara and her brothers and sisters adopted three bunnies. One girl and two boys. Their names are Ariella, Adam and Isaac.
They have one whole room that they share with Sara’s brothers. Three bunnies make a big mess, but they just take turns cleaning up. They get to have outside playtime.
Pedro and Emily and Hugo are going to keep the other two, who are both girls, Sofia and Isabella.
The backyard gardens kept exploding all summer. In ours we grew arugula, Swiss Chard, sorrel, carrots, spinach, kale, beets, celery, raddiccio, peas and lettuce. Wild strawberries, clover, and dandelions grew by themselves bigger and more than they even did at our house in the country.
What happened was that our garden in Brooklyn had every single thing we ever had in the country. The things we couldn’t fit in ours were growing in our friends gardens.
Sook grew dill, cilantro, mint, chamomile, regular basil and holy basil. People who had restaurants asked her to grow herbs for them. She also made her own tea that all the people like so much. They put hot water on the dried out plants and they drink that.
Sook planted garlic for next year by putting pieces of the bulbs in the ground and just leaving them for the winter.
The baby cats are ten weeks old. Every says they are So Cute. I don’t like the baby cats. They frighten me when they want to chase me and want to play with everything pretending it’s a mouse with their claws and little sharp teeth.
Jayden and Amani adopted two of the orange stripy ones and they are allowed outside. They climb up on the pear tree and they hide under the raspberry bushes. They were with their mommy until they were 8 weeks old. They are both boys and their names are Hakeem and Simba.
Sook adopted two of them. They are both girls and she named them Balam and Binna. That’s when she started growing catnip too. They climb on everything and they scratch everything. Then people pet them and they make their purring sound. Then they fall asleep.
One of the baby cats will stay with it’s mommy and live in the house no one lives in. Everyone is still taking turns feeding all of those outdoor cats. The children are going to give all the outdoor cats names now.
Because of all the new orange stripy baby cats that run around so fast with their sharp teeth and claws, we don’t even see the monster mice anymore. They got scared and went someplace else.
Everyone plays with everyone all the time now. And they help each other with all the things in the backyards and all the animals.
We had a party I want to tell you about. Everybody came to our backyard. Farmer George came. He and Bibi put out big long tables for everyone. All the rabbits were allowed to play together. We nibbled on all of our favorite things and helped the bunny babies learn what was safe and not safe. One of them started kissing Farmer George on his hand.
Sook brought her chamomile and mint tea. Sara’s brother has been taking care of the bees. He brought special honey they made in the bee house. He told us all how they do it, with the queen bee and the worker bees. From their garden they brought brussel sprouts, endive, carrots, jalapeno peppers and lots and lots of flowers.
Jayden and Imani have to wait until next year to see the pears and figs come out, but they did get raspberries. We got to eat some of the leaves and branches and twigs. We like the berries too.
The people only like the berries and they made two sweet pies from them.
George made a special salad out of mixing every single thing that everyone grew. Even flowers were in his salad. He also used the leaves of dandelion that grows by itself.
He said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think you could grow twenty different crops right here in the backyards of Brooklyn! The Magic Pellets really are... magic!”
The party was Bibi, Farmer George, Pedro, his parents, Sook, Imani, Jayden, Sara and her brothers and sisters.
The people ate salad, squash, brussel sprouts, eggplant, and then raspberry pies. Pedro and his mother brought a special salad made of tomatoes, basil, parsley and arugula. They drank tea with honey. They played and sang songs together. Music is different sounds people make, not talking or yelling, but sometimes it is loud like that. We like the music when it is more quiet. Pedro knows songs in his language which is Spanish. People all have different kinds of talking sounds and that is his.
Everyone talked about how fun it was to make the gardens grow food and herbs again. They said it was a very very long time ago since anyone did that in Brooklyn.
They talked about what to plant next year. Sook is going to grow more herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme and lavender. Lavender is supposed to smell very bad to bunnies. People plant it to get rabbits out of the garden. But Boxer loves it and even eats it so we don’t know.
Now there are ten rabbits because of Emily’s bunny babies. Do you know how many magic pellets per day that is? It is 2,000.
That is why we are giving away magic pellets to anyone who has a backyard garden.
People from all over Brooklyn are coming here to get them. Farmer George says: “Put them in the ground now and the soil will be better in the spring, ready and nourished for planting.” So that is what the people are doing.
The red and blue birds were flying around that day. The bugs sang for us at night, loud and happy. Bella and I and Boxer cleaned each other. Our bunny bellies were full of all of our favorite things. We thought about how many new friends we have. We never thought we would make new friends here.
Because we made the worms happy everyone got happy and that is how it is supposed to be.
When I fell asleep I dreamed that Sara and Pedro were holding hands, dancing. Everyone was dancing. Even all ten bunnies were dancing.
We are going to have many happy days and parties in our gardens forever.
Wherever you are - if you can make the worms a little happier they will make everything happier for you too.
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Thank you for following our story. We are delighted to present the above illustration, from a young and very gifted artist from New York City, Cayla Kushner. We had hoped she could illustrate this book, but alas it will not be possible for the upcoming release later this year. This rendering is extra special because Cayla knew Sandra and played with her many times when she was young. Cayla will be a senior in High School this fall and she is the owner of a beautiful female rabbit named Peanut.
As we shift gears and begin the search for another illustrator, we intend to stay on track for December publication. Related material will be arriving in your inbox here on Substack, and we thank you sincerely for your support!
Thank you, Sandra for taking us into your life in Brooklyn. It was a very enjoyable read. I am looking for to your book. I will promote it, purchase and review it. Also, thank BiBi for me, for letting you share your story, Sandra.
Really looking forward to the book!💜💜💜