Just call me Mrs. MacGregor....

Another rabbit sighting, 9 May

I was outside in my pajamas, hacking down my rye with a shovel, and getting pretty doggone good at it, thank you very much, and was almost finished, near the fence, when I did my step-hack sequence and was startled by the tell-tale scream of a rabbit. At least I was pretty sure it was a rabbit. I couldn't see the source of the noise. But I had a rabbit many eons ago when I was a kid, and I remember the time he got loose in the back yard and we had to catch him, that scream he let out when we finally made a successful grab. And then there was the time at band camp when my best friend started marking time at the Drum Major's signal, and found that unbeknownst to her she was standing on a rabbit's nest. You can imagine the screams - the rabbits and the teenagers - and the ensuing hysteria.

So even though it flitted across my mind that I might have unwittingly dismembered a field mouse - sadly this has happened, quite by accident, before - it was no surprise to me when the baby rabbit, considerably larger than it was the last time that I saw it, presented itself, apparently unharmed.

I think I just scared the crap out of it. I know that bunny scream scared the crap out of me.

It made sense out of that half-eaten strawberry I found a few days ago, still clinging to its vine.

What to do?

Of course, it couldn't stay. Absolutely no rabbits allowed to make their home in the garden. Interesting things about the babies, they're quite able to squeeze themselves through even the closest-spaced wires of the rabbit guard. Rabbit guard indeed.

So I ushered him out, gently, with the shovel, where he proceeded to crouch in the tall weeds along the garden fence and to generally try to make himself invisible. Thankfully my dogs were all tied up at the time and did not notice the quick arc the bunny made across some open grass before settling into its hiding place. It occurred to me that I could solve the problem very quickly by letting them loose, but that - while sure to be effective - just seemed too cruel, especially with my daughter watching everything with rapt attention.

So I headed over to the carport where I came up with a plastic pitcher and an old Frisbee, and I managed to get the little thing inside the pitcher without too much trouble. I carried him to the fence line at the back of the yard.

Toss him over? Nope. Way too high. That would be sure to cause cruel and unusual damage. And that's when it came to me.

The day before, on one my patrols around the yard, I happened to notice a hole that had been dug all the way through under my fence. Groundhog? Rabbit? A small neighborhood dog? I have no idea. I do know that it was nowhere near big enough for one of my dogs to get through it. Still, I had hauled a cinder block out from behind one of the sheds and plopped it on top and there you go, problem solved. No one coming in. No one getting out.

This hole was plenty big enough, though, to be a safe passageway for a baby rabbit.

So I took my captured charge back there, moved the cinder block with my foot, and let the rabbit go to scamper through into the yard of the neighbors behind me. Then I put the cinder block back and another rabbit problem is solved.

Were the neighbors likely to mind? Honestly, I didn't think that they were likely to notice. Their yard is not fenced, and the neighborhood is full of these wild brown hares. And besides, I know for a fact from my frequent walks around the neighborhood that these neighbors do not have a garden.

A few days later...

The next time I was out and about and happened by that same spot in the fence, I saw that the hole had simply been extended the length of the concrete block. The rabbit must have burrowed right back in.

Since then I've seen him out grazing in the grass. My daughter has spotted him in the garden. I've learned where his front door is, and that he is indeed living in relative safety under our shed, which is fenced away from the dogs, who are always likely to go tunneling in there after him or whatever else they see or smell. One day I went back there for a peice of fencing that I'd left against the shed wall, and I caught him right out there in the small patch of grass between two sheds, and he darted back under the shed in the same place where I had set him a few weeks ago. (Right past the still visible other rabbit babies which, unfortunately, died there).

So I'm pretty doggone sure this is one of the babies I found in April.

This morning

So today I let my dogs out at 6:30, and there is an immediate ruckus. I look outside and my two young male dogs are running around the garden, barking at the fence line, and I know that we've interrupted our rabbit's breakfast.

Arghgh.

So I walk out there and can see him darting around, looking for a way out. I guess rabbit guard is best negotiated in a non-stressful environment. So I called off my dogs and came back inside, so he can get himself on back home - until tomorrow morning - when I'm sure he'll be back in there again, helping himself to something.

How much can one rabbit eat? I guess through the course of this growing season, I'm going to find out!