Being a parent (and a darned good one, if I don’t say so myself) I used to spend a lot of time reading to the boys. Now that they are all grown up (ages eight and six, respectively) and read on their own, I can longingly only look back to those father/son times . . . and their books.
I have a certain place in my soul for that heart-warming children’s tale by Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit. The boys liked them, too. My affinity for those stories is not because of the cute illustrations, nor the very warm and caring Rabbit Family, featuring the title character. Nope, as far as I’m concerned Flopsy, Mopsy, Hopsy, Peter and Cottontail can all go to — they can pack up their bags and leave.
I like the book, because I can relate to one of the characters, the mean-old, cranky-old, old man Mr. McGreggor. I know his plight. I feel McGreggor’s pain.
Oh those wascally wabbits!
Two sibling rabbits have staked out my vegeatable garden as their own. This is the first year in my gardening history where I have had rabbit problems. I have had problems with a heard of marauding groundhogs; earwigs have devastated my crops; rolly-pollies have taken bits out of my peppers; slugs have, well, slugs are just slimy, icky gross things that I just as soon forget I ever saw. But, rabbits have generally shied away from my garden. We have lived in peace and harmony. The circle of life was complete. My karma was clean.
That was then.
In my gardening journal this year I have scrawled, with desperate, nay, psychotic penmanship, ‘Kill da wabbit. Kill Da wabbit.
‘KILL DA WABBIT . . .
‘Bring down da funder, bring down da lightning. Strike da wabbit dead!?
You know things are tough in garden-land when I start looking to Elmer Fudd for guidance.
Holy Rajanikar, how’s my karma looking to you now, Batman?
Past fuzzy, cute and non-garden-raiding rabbits, I believe, stayed away from my tender young plants because I always fortified the garden perimeter with marigolds. Marigolds have kept the beasts at bay. But, no more.
And, I don’t know why.
Oryctolagus cuniculus, the common rabbit like we know ’em in the wilds, are not native to these parts. If memory serves me correctly they were brought to the New World by colonists from the, er, uhm — Old World. So, I blame the English for my problems.
It is all their fault that 2,000 or so miles from London, England, I have two wittle wabbits nibbling on my garden goods. The English are always the problem!
So, why is it that my rabbits ignore my marigold permitter? Are their sniffers broken?
Have they evolved? Did some whacked-out, supersonic fast evolution process take place below the surface of my yard in their warrens? Like insects, have these rabbits built up an immunity to my smelly defense? These two rabbits are not only not repelled by the marigolds, but actually eat the marigolds.
ARGG!
Is this just the beginning? Will these two sibling rabbits start shaking up, living in sin and start reproducing? Screw that darned bird flu thing. This could be disastorous. My garden could be ground-zero for an upcoming super-rabbit pandemic. I just went on-line and found out that rabbits are ready to rock and roll and have babies when they are between three and four months old. A doe can have three to six young every month, with most of the fun happening in the spring through early summer.
Let’s do some wabbit math for, lets say, four months of breeding a year. One doe rabbit equals four a month for four months. That’s 16 new bunnies. If half are girls, next year those eight will make 128 baby rabbits. If half of those are girls, in two years there could be 1,024 marigold ignoring, vegetable nibbling garden thieves hopping in our half acre yard. I carried the math out and by the third year I get 8,192 rabbits.
Gulp. Any body got a good recipe for Hossenpfeffer?
Comments for Don ‘Mr. McGreggor? Rush can be e-mailed to: dontrushmedon@charter.net