The Rabbit Who Lived Under the Tiny House
Tiny house at Black Bear Cottage-
Every cabin has its quiet residents — the ones who were here before you and will be here after you leave. At Black Bear Cottage, ours was a rabbit.
We don't know exactly when he moved in. One spring, we noticed the small worn path in the grass that led to a hollow underneath the tiny house, just where the wood meets the earth. A few weeks later, we saw him: a soft brown rabbit, no bigger than a loaf of bread, sitting on the lawn at dusk like he owned the place. Which, in a way, he did. He'd gotten there first.
What surprised us most was how the guests took to him.
It started with one family who left a carrot on the back deck before turning in for the night. By morning, the carrot was gone. They mentioned it on their way out — half a confession, half a story they couldn't wait to tell — and from then on, it became a kind of unofficial cottage tradition. Guests would arrive, hear about the rabbit, and quietly leave a carrot or a few lettuce leaves on the edge of the deck before bed. Sometimes they'd come back a few months later and ask, Is he still there? Did he like the carrots?
For a long time, he always was. He always did.
There's something about staying in a place that feels truly of the woods — not just decorated to look like it, but actually woven into the landscape — that changes how you notice things. Guests who came expecting to disconnect from their inboxes ended up reconnecting with something else entirely: the deer that wandered through at sunrise, the birds at the feeder, the fireflies in July, and the rabbit under the tiny house. People who hadn't thought about a rabbit in thirty years suddenly cared, deeply, whether one specific rabbit in one specific corner of Sullivan County was doing okay.
We loved that. We still do.
It feels like the whole point of building this place. To provide shelter for humans inside the cottage, and to provide shelter for wildlife outside it. To remember that the property isn't really ours — we're just the current caretakers of a small patch of woods in the Catskills, and the rabbits and the deer and the owls were here long before we showed up with paint cans and a renovation plan.
We haven't seen him in a while, though. It's been a long winter — longer than usual — and we keep watching the path in the grass beside the tiny house, hoping for movement. Maybe he found a warmer spot. Maybe he's just lying low until the mornings get softer. We hope, very much, that he's doing fine.
So if you're staying with us this spring or summer and you happen to see a rabbit on the lawn at dusk — or any sign that he's still around — let us know. Leave a carrot on the deck just in case. He'll appreciate it. And so will we.
Who will spot him next?