Wednesday, July 03, 2024

“What's up, doc?"

There are scads of wild rabbits this year here in New England!  I don't recall ever seeing SO many.  Guessing it might have something to do with the mild winters we've had the last couple of years.

As many folks view these rabbits as cute, I find them a nuisance in general but more so when you're having to battle with them to keep them destroying your flower and vegetable gardens.

There are about a half dozen of these vermin in my backyard alone.  They disappear during the day but come out in the evenings and early mornings when it's cooler and do constant damage, GRRR

This Rose Campion is one example, where they eat parts of it snapping the flowering stems off -


They like to give themselves dirt baths, so any bare spots are attractive to them.  They'll get in those spots, dig and roll around making a mess, especially if in one of my veggie gardens.  Smaller, up and coming plants like my carrots and beans don't stand a chance.

If they survive that onslaught, well then its the taste that attracts them.  I even installed a separate fence around my raised beds specifically to keep these vermin out but they still find a way in, and once in they make short work of eating plants to the ground.  You can see what they've done to my bean plants - 

But fear not for my persistence has paid off, GOTCHA!

This trapped pest was the one who had an acquired taste for my bean and carrot plants, which proved to be his downfall!


One down and SO many more to go and like Carl Spackler said in Caddyshack (just replace "gophers" with "rabbits") - 

"Licensed to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. A man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote."

No comments: