A baby rabbit fell into a quarry’s mixing machine yesterday and came out in the middle of a concrete block. But the rabbit still had the strength to dig its way free before the block set.
The tiny creature was scooped up with 30 tons of sand, then swirled and pounded through the complete mixing process. Mr Michael Hooper, the machine operator, found the rabbit shivering on top of the solid concrete block, its coat stiff with fragments. A hole from the middle of the block and paw marks showed the escape route.
Mr Reginald Denslow, manager of J. R. Pratt and Sons’ quarry at Kilmington, near Axminster, Devon, said: ‘This rabbit must have a lot more than nine lives to go through this machine. I just don’t know how it avoided being suffocated, ground, squashed or cut in half.’ With the 30 tons of sand, it was dropped into a weighing hopper and carried by conveyor to an overhead mixer where it was whirled around with gallons of water.
From there the rabbit was swept to a machine which hammers wet concrete into blocks by pressure of 100 lb per square inch. The rabbit was encased in a block eighteen inches long, nine inches high and six inches thick. Finally the blocks were ejected on to the floor to dry and the dazed rabbit clawed itself free. ‘We cleaned him up, dried him by the electric fire, then he hopped away,’ Mr Denslow said.
Daily Telegraph
‘Tell us a story Grandad’
The bunny rabbits implored
‘About the block of concrete
Out of which you clawed.
‘Tell every gory detail
Of how you struggled free
From the teeth of the Iron Monster
And swam through a quicksand sea.
‘How you battled with the Humans
(And the part we like the most)
Your escape from the raging fire
When they held you there to roast.’
The old adventurer smiled
And waved a wrinkled paw
‘All right children, settle down
I’ll tell it just once more.’
His thin nose started twitching
Near-blind eyes began to flood
As the part that doesn’t age
Drifted back to bunnyhood.
When spring was king of the seasons
And days were built to last
When thunder was merely thunder
Not a distant quarry blast.
How, leaving the warren one morning
Looking for somewhere to play,
He’d wandered far into the woods
And there had lost his way.
When suddenly without warning
The earth gave way, and he fell
Off the very edge of the world
Into the darkness of Hell.
Sharp as the colour of a carrot
On a new-born bunny’s tongue
Was the picture he recalled
Of that day when he was young.
Trance-formed now by the memory
His voice was close to tears
But the story he was telling
Was falling on deaf ears.
There was giggling and nudging
And lots of ‘sssh – he’ll hear’
For it was a trick, a game they played
Grown crueller with each year.
‘Poor old Grandad’ they tittered
As they one by one withdrew
‘He’s told it all so often
He now believes it’s true.’
Young rabbits need fresh carrots
And his had long grown stale
So they left the old campaigner
Imprisoned in his tale.
Petrified by memories
Haunting ever strong
Encased in a block of time
Eighteen inches long.
***
Alone in a field in Devon
An old rabbit is sitting, talking,
When out of the wood, at the edge of the world,
A man with a gun comes walking.