She always glows pink so you can disguise the fact that she's always feeling blue

[sovay]

My mother planted some young trees in her side yard last weekend. The overgrowth of rabbits afflicting the neighborhood has since eaten all but two. She is very upset, especially since they have also eaten her strawberries and her tomatoes, seemingly impervious to the usual safeguards. I made a temporary shelter for the leafier, less gnawed of the two survivors tonight and may return over the weekend to construct a more permanent one. Needless to say, I also spent some time yelling and driving rabbits out of the yard. They were astonishingly unafraid for something so plump and delicious.

I do not understand, if one can rent goats to clear one's lawn of poison ivy and other weeds, why it is not possible to procure foxes for similar purposes. Wanted: one vixen with plenty of hungry kits to feed. Offering: attractive side and back yard with overgrown ravine suitable for denning, gratitude and admiration of nearby humans who will maintain respectful distance, all the rabbits you can eat. Please respond by moving in at your convenience.

(I am all in favor of breeding the endangered New England cottontail back to a stable population. The invasive Eastern cottontail is eating everything my mother plants and I think about Hasenpfeffer.)

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

There are coyotes in Lexington, but presumably not enough to eat all the rabbits.
To prevent munching, there is extensive fencing at the Interfaith Garden (and usually netting over the berries to deter birds).
I am very surprised to hear that the buns ate the trees, though. That is usually ascribed to deer, of which Lexington used to have a few.
We have the one flowery/weedy yard on our street, which I cut to be sort of lawn height, out of neighborliness. The usually total monoculture lawn across the street from us now has little clover flower patches, and I have been wondering whether the rabbits took the seeds over on their fur, as we have seen them graze back and forth.

[sovay]

There are coyotes in Lexington, but presumably not enough to eat all the rabbits.

There can't be! There are rabbits everywhere.

I am very surprised to hear that the buns ate the trees, though. That is usually ascribed to deer, of which Lexington used to have a few.

It's definitely the rabbits, not deer. We caught them in the act a couple of years ago when they did their best to kill my late-flowering dogwood by girdling her. With the baby trees, they're chewing off the bark and the new little leaves and leaving sticks stuck in the lawn. It's incredibly uncool.

The usually total monoculture lawn across the street from us now has little clover flower patches, and I have been wondering whether the rabbits took the seeds over on their fur, as we have seen them graze back and forth.

Sounds plausible to me.