Penny Was Right!

TULAREMIA RUNS WILD...SAVE YOUR KIDS!!!!

Earlier this spring my boys found some baby rabbits, they played with them all day, carried them in a 5 gallon bucket, and even carried them around in a rain boot.

Grandma Penny came out the night after the boys found the rabbits, and of course they went back to the nest of rabbits, picked all 8 of them up again and showed them to Grandma. I am sure she was impressed with my parenting, an she was pretty insistent that the boys be scrubbed from head to toe with a anti-bacterial soap of some sort, then pressure washed 3 or 4 times over. She told us the boys could get "tularemia" from rabbits. (For the record it is pronounced like it reads, but just run it together "Tulare"-"Mia")

I had never heard of Tularemia, and joked that it is some disease that originated in Tulare, or that my mom was a little bit overboard in her cares for her grand children. I was of the mentality of let boys be boys, jump off roofs, playing in dirt, play with dead birds, etc.

So with the breaking news today of the epidemic in Sioux Falls, I have to say, "mom was right." Click here for the tularemia story from the Argus.

For the record, the boys played with the rabbits for about 2 days then kind of forgot about them, and I wanted the rabbits to die. I know cruel, but we have enough rabbits around so it didn't bother me that this litter of 8 wouldn't make it. Most animal moms don't return to the nest after humans touch their babies, especially after my 2 young Jeff Corwin's unsettled the birth place. Crazy enough there was 3 younglings that survived out of that litter.

The boys have not shown any symptoms of Tularemia either...that we know of, unless symptoms include, not listening the first time, punching a sibling, and refusal to wear shirts and shoes at all times.