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

[strange_complex]

I did not even know you could hire goats for lawn-munching purposes! That sounds very sensible, and probably more environmentally-friendly than strimmers or weed-killer.

Rabbits have obviously been doing better than they used to in the UK recently, too. There are some living in Leeds city centre, I saw one in my garden recently, and so has my Dad. He lives in Birmingham, but in a similar position to me in Leeds - i.e. roughly half-way between the city centre and the edge of town, and definitely not where you'd expect to see rabbits or where we ever have before this year.

[sovay]

I did not even know you could hire goats for lawn-munching purposes!

It's very popular around here! Both my brother's family and gaudior's mother and stepfather did it, I think via different companies, even. I love it.

He lives in Birmingham, but in a similar position to me in Leeds - i.e. roughly half-way between the city centre and the edge of town, and definitely not where you'd expect to see rabbits or where we ever have before this year.

My parents have a ravine and a reservoir behind their house, so there were always some, but there wasn't always a siege on. You see them by the dozens as you walk down the street. I really think the town of Lexington must have done something catastrophic to its fox population; absolutely nobody is taking the rabbits out.