Happy Easter everyone!  Not your standard Easter holiday by any means, but hopefully you will be able to take a break, reflect on better times, reach out (virtually) to your loved ones and most of all make an effort to shed some of that pent up stress.  I’m in my third day of not being intentionally consumed by news and feeling better than I have in a long time.  Now I just need to get Linda peeled away as she’s been intermittently walking past me fuming about one thing or another she saw on Facebook or other outlet.  Saw this quote on one of my favorite ultra-marathon outlets.

Almost everything will work again if you  unplug for a few minutes including you – Anne Lamot (note, only like here quote – not an endorsement of her opinions). 

Thanks to Shawn over at https://www.scienceofultra.com/support for the reference.  I cannot think of a better time than now to just unplug for a few minutes to get all those internal stress capacitors to fully drain.

Then plug back in and fill them back up with 100% pure cuteness.

Hit the jump unless you are scared of soft, cuddly, round eared, button nosed whisker wearing balls of fur.

I rifled through the image queue in search of an appropriate wildlife subject to feature in honor of the holiday.  I was shocked to find I had used up all my processed bunnies. If you have to have a bunny fix, feel free to hop back to some of my previous posts (link here, hare, hare, hare and hare).  Sounds like I need to get back in the digital darkroom and get the queue filled with some of these living cotton balls.  After coming up empty, opted to go with the next best thing.   Now, honestly, don’t you just want to scoop this little creature up and give it a big hug?

You know what, wait right there one second, I should probably do some real quick research.  Okay, from what I can tell these little creatures do not a) have canines (only gnawing incisors per Wikipedia) b) do not have a reputation of mauling humans to death.  Whew, that was close, I didn’t want to give you any bad ideas … so, all is good, feel free to scoop one up and hug it like you mean it.  Hold on… “who was that?”, “he said what?”, “did you check with our lawyers?”.  Apparently, a representative from the Pika Conservation Society got wind of my hug recommendation and got in touch with Linda with a cease and desist order.  So, when you do get a chance to hug one, just don’t tell anyone I said to do it.

First off, who the hell knew these furballs had lawyers, not to mention being able to actually pay them – they don’t even have pockets to keep their money in.  Nature continues to surprise me.  As their legal department name indicated, these adorable creatures are called Pikas.  We have our friends David and Dr. G to thank for being introduced to them.  They told us about them while we were on a trip to Yellowstone together.  Expected a lot more menacing creature with a name like Pika.  Imagined them wearing armored helmets carrying large metal tipped spears – definitely not a giant Mouse.

Encyclopedia Britannica also referred to them as Mouse Hares.  Quickly thereafter pointing out that the Pika is neither a Mouse nor a Hare.  How’s that for being completely wrong eh ha.  It is interesting to note the Pika does belong to the group Lagomorphs which also happens to contain bunnies (both hares and rabbits if you need to be exact). Unlike Bunnies, these Pikas are nearly tailless have relatively round and compact ears and void of the oversized hind leg characteristic.  Therefore, not hoppers, rather scampers.

These specimens were found on our visit to the Rocky Mountain National Park while out west to compete in the Teacup Dog Agility Nationals back in May 2014.  If I remember correctly the full pass through the Rockies was closed due to snow, but we were able to make it most of the way up to the high elevations they like to hang out in.  Simply find a pull off and start scouting the rocks on the downslope side.  Their coloring allows them to blend in well with their surroundings, however, they tend to squeak as they dive for the safety of cracks in the rocks.  Beware, you will probably be hounded by panhandling Marmots (link here) the entire time you are looking for them.

As I’m out of images, better call it a post.  I did have an interesting tidbit… now thinking I don’t really want to go there, especially since I referenced hugging them earlier.  If you are really curious (and want to ruin Easter) you can look up coprophagy (I warned you).  Pretty sure B across the pond knows this word based on his primary subjects over at Butterflies to Dragsters.

Happy Easter or as I’ll be referring to it going forward outside of its religious context – Happy Worldwide Hug a Lagomorph Day.