The Tale of Herbie!

This is the story of "Herbie" the rabbit and his days living with the Evans family.

A little less than a year ago, Grandma McKinney called me and said she wanted to give Lydia a present, but she needed to get our permission. She wanted to give Lydia a bunny. A kindergarten student had brought in some cute newborn bunnies and they were looking for a good home for them. I told her I would talk to Zeke. To my surprise, Zeke's response was "Can we get two bunnies?" Sure enough we could, so we ended up with Herbie and Sketch!

These pictures were taken a the day we brought the bunnies home last year!

The bunnies were fun to hold, were cute and I felt okay this is going to teach my boys some responsibility of taking care of something. Every kid needs a pet and bunnies are going to be easier than having a dog. Well our sympathetic hearts got the best of us and we just couldn't bare to see the bunnies locked in their cage every day, so we would let them out for the afternoon. Well sooner or later the bunnies got faster and harder to catch, they also started eating many of our plants and became very custom to the outdoors. Herbie especially started developing some bad habits of biting, and when the boys would go out in the morning to feed them Herbie would fight his way out of his hutch resulting in myself having to go out to catch him (once in my robe, towel on my head and pregnant!!!) To say the least mom and the rest of the family were getting fed up with Herbie. We didn't know what to do with him, I suggested we take him on "the drive", but Zeke didn't have the heart to do that, all he could imagine was Herbie hoping away into the woods only to be attacked by a raccoon. I tried to convince Holly, my childhood friend who now has a farm to take him, but she has already reached her animal limit. So it was suggest we take him to the auction.


My only familiarity with the auction was going with my dad to the auction on an occasional Saturday. We never bought anything there, and I am not quite sure why we ever went, but I do remember enjoying it along with my siblings (Matt especially).


We decided the auction was probably the best place to take Herbie. So Saturday was the day! We didn't care how much money we got for him, we just wanted to find him another home. It became a family affair.

The Auction is approximately 20 minutes east of Auburn. Somewhere between here and there, it becomes farm country!

Lydia thought this bull head was neat.

A country band played some country blues. We were told that whatever Herbie came in is what he goes with, so Zeke put him in a banana box. Bye, bye Herbie.

Here is the auction floor before the bidding started. All the boxes are filled with rabbits, chickens, geese, roosters, ducks, etc. Herbie was in one of them.

The bidding of over 100 animals took less then an hour. Check out how talented this lady is. She can hold two chickens in one hand.

Leading up to the actual bidding of Herbie was a little traumatic. Mason started worrying what would happen if no one would buy him. The thought of no one wanting him put tears in his eyes and he started feel bad that we were selling him.

When the bidding began we were very cautious as to not to itch our face or point, for we didn't want to accidentally buy a bunny or a chicken. When Herbie was up Lydia put her hand up, Oh no I said, we can't buy him back. Later I found out she was just waving hi to Herbie.

So there you have it 1 year, 1 bunny, 4 dollars later.

Zeke thinks for $4 we should take Sketch to the auction next week. But the kids will hear nothing of it. In fact when Lydia got home she went right out to say hi to Sketch.