Specialty Gardening: Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #37, 1 by Lala_Jane

Lala_Jane wrote:
There is just something so wrong with this way of thinking.

How often do we as gardeners shake our hoe at the rabbit nibbling our lettuce? Actually I remember seeing that scene illustrated in a book when I was a kid, LOL. But it's true! I've grumbled and moaned over the little %^$ chewing on my tender vegetation more times than I can count. However when it comes right down to it apparently I'd rather spare the rabbit and spoil the veggies.

As my noble steed and I were out perusing the garden tonight at sunset I was giving him thunder for jumping through my nursery bed. I could tell by his excitement that he'd found something interesting and the next thing I knew he was hell bent for election with a little yelping ball of fur in his mouth.

"ALDO DROP IT!!!!!!"

And he promptly did. I don't think he had chewed on it or hurt it in any way at all. I rather believe he looked upon it as he does the kitties next door whom he's always seen as potential playmates. (The poor guy just doesn't understand why the kitties have never seen things the same way.) I scooped up the baby, tethered the dog, then I just stood there. What was I going to do with it now? LOL! The mother wouldn't take it back after the dog and I had both touched it and obviously I couldn't bring it inside. Aldo would have been beside himself with...um...enthusiasm, and I just wasn't up to the chaos that I knew would follow.

In the end I talked the neighbors into taking it. I promised that I would find a cage (which I did) and an eyedropper (which I did) and I also promised that the bunny would be big enough to turn loose in a week or two. (Like I have the slightest clue. But I'd have promised the moon if they were willing to take it off my hands and leave me with a clear conscious.)

So the bunny lives to see another day. It lives to eat my cosmos, my marigolds, my zinnias and my peppers. It lives to hear me grumble and to see me shake my hoe in frustration.

Or maybe we'll be like the lion and the mouse. Maybe he'll remember that it was I who spared his life and forever take his lunches from the farmer back the lane. Now wouldn't THAT be a fairy tale?

LOL!