I Save Bunnies

When I got back from bringing Hannah back from gymnastics practice tonight, I was in the kitchen and noticed that Darby, our dog, was fooling around with a little patch of grass in the backyard.

She wasn't digging in a manic state. Rather, she was sniffing around the grass a lot and moving dead grass from the area with her nose.

I was concerned.

So I went to where she was fooling around and uncovered a bit more of the dead grass over the area to discover a rabbit hole full of bunnies. After I got Darby back in the house before she had a second supper, I went back to the hole and inspected it further.

Yep, bunnies. And they're right in the damn middle of my back yard.

Location, location, location.

And this location stinks. I headed to the shed to get formulate a plan as Mrs. Nasty, the kids, and a panting dog watched from the dining room window.

My solution: a wire cage I used last summer for bell peppers. I fashioned the cages from some basic metal fencing that has substantial gaps in them, enough of a gap on one side for Ma Rabbit to get back to the hole. Or maybe bunnies get abandoned? I don't know.

Whatever happens in bunny world, I'm not real confident that my bell pepper cage will withstand Darby's aggressive curiosity. She wants her some rabbit.

I've put one of those ground leashes in the side yard, but how long am I going to have to tie up Darby? Can these bunnies get self-sufficient and get the hell out of my yard? Like soon...

And from another perspective, I'm a vegetable gardener. Rabbits are the enemy. You could say that I'm getting "soft," but I have fencing around my garden and the aforementioned dog. But I didn't want my seven-year old and almost four-year old witnessing their dog destroying rabbit babies in the back.

I've been known, on occasion, to be cold-hearted, but I'm not that cold-hearted.

But they better stay away from my garden, or I release the hound.