Hare-Brained ... and totally unbelievable!

I've wondered where the term "hare-brained" came from. Now I know. It happened night-before-last. I was mowing the grass in the lower-40 (the field out behind our back-yard). It's been raining the past few days, and the grass is nice, lush, and thick. I haven't mowed back there in several weeks, so the grass is fairly high, and it was slow going. Now, from a rabbit's point of view, I would think that a human mowing grass would be a scary apparition. My mower is a lawn tractor. It's made by Husqvarna, and is painted bright orange. It has a 15-hp Briggs and Stratton on it which makes one whole-heap heckuva lotta noise when it's running. In fact, I've often thought that perhaps I should be wearing hearing protection when I mow the grass, as my neighbors both do when they ride their lawn tractors. And in addition to being loud, the thing vibrates the ground as it rumbles across the yard. And the spinning blades vibrate the air, like the chop-chop-chop of a helicopter. And to top it off, I was mowing at the end of the day, right at dusk, so I had turned on the headlights. So visualize this: Here's this huge, orange, vibrating, rumbling, light-bearing, deafening monster out in the grassy field right after sunset, wreaking havoc on the grassy meadow. I'm mowing merrily along, and come across this family of rabbits. They are eating grass, and as I get near, they stop eating and watch me out of the corner of their eyes. They aren't looking straight at me, but I can tell that they see me, because they all stop what they are doing and just sit there. They don't move, as I on my loud, bright, noisy mower get closer and closer and closer. Now, if I were a rabbit, and had half a brain, I would take off like a ... jackrabbit. And more importantly, I would run... AWAY... from the noisy, vibrating, huge, lit-up thing that was devastating the grassy meadow. The key words here are, "run", "away", and "from". So what do these rabbits do? They all just sit there as I approach, until I get within about eight feet of them! I don't know, maybe they are busy soiling their underwear or something. They just sit there looking off into space! It's not like they can't hear me ... their ears are half the size of their body! And it's not like they can't see me... I've got the darn headlights on! And I'm sure as heck vibrating the ground! The crickets and grasshoppers have all been hopping out in front of me all evening! So when I get within about eight feet from these rabbits, suddenly, the big one jumps, almost straight up in the air about three feet, comes back down, and takes off like a shot, but ricocheting around. He moves two feet to the north, two feet to the west, two feet back to the east, two feet to the south, two feet back to the north, taking one leap in each direction, and he's moving at full throttle so he makes about ten direction changes in the space of about a quarter-of-a-second! And the other, littler, rabbits, take off too, and they too run full throttle and they too change direction with every single step or bound. It's sheer pandemonium, and at the end of the first half-second, the rabbits are ALL right back within the same three-foot circle they started in! But by now, the lawn tractor has now moved about four feet closer, and I'm about to run over them in the next half-second. And they keep on with the confused running around, until finally they all scatter and take off in different directions, and, get this! I'm not joking and I'm not making this up (and I've got the evidence out there in the lower-40 to prove it!)... one of the little ones runs STRAIGHT for the lawn tractor, and before I can even step on the brake, runs (!) right between the front wheels of the tractor, apparently trying to take cover UNDERNEATH the mower deck! Unbelieveable! This rabbit runs right underneath the deafening engine, between two rolling wheels, and squeezes under the one-inch opening between the mower deck and the ground, right into an area which is emanating rumbling vibrations and spitting out chewed up grass clippings! Unbelievable! I don't have time to react. I watch in disbelief for the tenth-of-a-second it took to happen, as this little bunny disappears into the sliver of darkness and ... --- ... thump-thump-thump. This makes the tractor two for two its quest for eating bunny rabbits this month. Unlike the last one, where the tractor went over a rabbit hole and the hapless thumper apparently decided to poke his head out to see what all the ruckus was about, this one is a prime example of those "what in the world was he thinking?" moments. The mower is positively deafening, it's moving, it has two bright scary lights, it appears to be in attack mode, it is ridden by a freaky-looking gray-haired pot-bellied hunched-over dirty dusty human whose pants have ridden up his legs exposing the hairy shins above his socks, the contraption is shaking the ground and vibrating the air, and is coming right at him, so to get away this hare-brained hare decides to run ... UNDER IT?!? Anyway, this makes two rabbits in the past two weeks. I've heard of being as crazy as a March hare... I guess it also goes for September hares, too. In deference to Dubby's sensitivities, I refrain from posting a picture.