Rabbit update

We are now on our third generation of rabbits living in our yard this year. Some of the magic wore off when I saw what they'd done to the pea shoots, but even so the baby rabbits are impossibly cute.

When it was just the first rabbit, the big rabbit, I sat down and sketched it as it hopped about the lawn munching.


So I put up a rabbit-proof fence, which I was assured is the only real way to keep them away. I bought it at Home Depot, and it is basically a metal grid that is larger near the top, and much closer at the bottom -- the gaps are about 1" tall and 5" wide. It seemed to be ding the trick until we began to see a baby bunny (third generation) hopping about back there. It must be going under the fence, or around it, I thought, since it certainly can't go through it.

Today Eric was in back, gardening, when he noticed the baby bunny hopping around in the peas. Hoping to dissuade it from this sort of behavior, he turned the hose on it. The little guy panicked and ran toward Eric, past him, and then squeezed through that 1" gap in the fence, and out into the yard to run away. Eric was nonplussed, and chased after him with the hose till he disappeared from the yard, all the while thinking, how irritating, how cute, how irritating, how cute. Really, the little bugger is so cute you can't even imagine, your heart just turns to mush.

I wasn't there, but this is how I imagine it happening:


Eventually the baby bunny will get bigger and won't be able to go through the fence anymore. He (or she) won't be so cute anymore, but he'll spend more time on the lawn than in the garden, and do less damage. Rabbits in the lawn are really pretty charming.

Labels: drawings, personal

posted by Tony at 10:47 PM