A Strange Visitor Behind the Barn

Just behind our barn right beyond the perimeter fence that borders our little 5 acre property on the south is a little patch of woods.  We don't own it.  It is overgrown with privet, ragweed, Chinaberry trees, and dewberries and briars.  It's home to a bunch of squirrels, possums, snakes, and other critters.  Every year I go out back and chop a 5 foot clearing to keep the wilderness from encroaching.  

Things, as we see all around us, move from order to disorder.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics or Law of Entropy states that when left alone in natural states, eventually everything goes back to disorder.  We see that played out in society, in our possessions, and heck, even our bodies.  Clearing a swath beyond the fence is a small way to keep wildness at bay.  It may even keep critters from coming onto our land as they're exposed to hawks and other birds of prey.

I always glance out back.  There's no telling what you might see.  Yesterday, I saw a strange sight indeed!

I couldn't believe my eyes!  A black rabbit!!  Now we have our share of cotton tail rabbits.  We've talked about them from time to time.  They got into the garden one year and mowed down all of our snap beans.  But this rabbit was different.  I've never seen a black rabbit in the wild before.  I showed Tricia the photos and she actually saw it again today.

The rabbit is big and fat and healthy.  We even wonder if it was a domesticated rabbit that somehow got away or was turned loose, but none of our neighbors have rabbits.  I looked up on the Internet to try to learn about black rabbits.  They apparently are extremely rare.  There's even a lot of superstitious talk of black rabbits, but I'm not superstitious.

I stood there and watched the fellow (or gal) for a long time.  The rabbit was nibbling on some of the fresh growth I had chopped down.  As I tried to move closer, the bunny hopped away.  What a gorgeous sight to see.

As strange as it is, I like having this strange black rabbit around.  I hope the rabbit stays out of the clearing, though, as the black rabbit is not quite as camouflaged as the brown cotton tails are.  It would be easy to see by the hawks and owls that patrol the skies near the patch of woods.  As it hopped away, I noticed that it does NOT have a cotton tail.  It is jet black, except for one foot that was white, as if it had a sock on.   

Not So Lucky

Ginger is our cat.  Sometimes we call her "Meow Meow" and other times she is known as Gingivitis.  She couldn't really be described as a house cat as she spends most of her time outdoors.  From time to time she'll scratch on the window screen or the French doors to let us know that she'd like to come inside and sleep all day in the sunroom.  Ah, the leisurely and independent life of a cat.

True to the reputation cats have gained of being finicky, she will beg for cat food, even when there is some in her dish in the garage.  Over time we have come to understand that she wants "fresh" food because if we scoop a little more food on top, she'll eat on it.  Can you believe, the cat thinks her food is stale if it sits out for a few hours.  Ginger doesn't do leftovers.  Well, please don't tell her.  This will be a secret between you and me, okay?  When she's not looking, I'll quickly poor the "stale" food back into the container and then scoop it out again.  Magically, it is fresh again.  She has not caught on to my trickery... yet.

A couple of days ago, Ginger wasn't interested in food at all.  We were wondering if she might be sick.  Here is the patient.  She doesn't look ill, does she?

Tricia had me look outside on the patio outside the French doors.  Ginger wasn't eating because she was sick.  She wasn't eating because she was FULL.  The old girl had hunted the previous evening and killed a rabbit.  She dissected her kill, leaving the head on top, the cottontail to the left, the entrails to the right and two rabbit's feet.

I am not a superstitious person and I don't believe in luck.  But if I did, I would say that the lucky rabbit's foot saying has been proven to be not true - for the poor rabbit at least.  Le lapin.

That Rascally Rabbit

When the kids were younger, we read them the Beatrix Potter stories.  They were all pretty good, but our favorite was Peter Rabbit.  It had suspense and danger in it.  You'll remember it, I'm sure.  It started off like this...

“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.”

What a bunch of mischievous bunnies, right?  We all thought they were so cute (and Mr. McGregor so mean!)  The rabbits were given instructions that were very clear.  The limitations to their journeys even contained a horrific explanation of just what had made Peter Rabbit's mother a widow...

“You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden. Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

I always thought that was a little too much detail to tell young bunnies.  Maybe she should have told them that Papa Rabbit was away on a business trip.  The other thing I always wondered about was: Rabbit Pie?  Mr. McGregor did not live in south Louisiana.  No rabbit pies.  Papa Rabbit would have been cooked in a dark brown gravy or smothered down in a fricassee.

Well, in our garden, a rabbit or two has been helping himself to our produce.  We thought it might be worms doing the damage, but then I spotted the rabbit poop.  In addition to devouring our entire green bean crop, he's nibbling on the lettuce, beets, and swiss chard.  That row of beets at one time was full from end to end.

I've gone out at night with a spotlight and a rifle.  No luck.  In the book, Peter was chased by Mr. McGregor!

“He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.”

If I were to catch the rabbit, he would lose more than his shoes.  Surprisingly, the row of carrots have remained unscathed.

We've never had rabbit issues before.  Since I've failed in shooting the rabbit, I have a three pronged attack plan, and I've implemented 2 of the 3 action steps.

First, I went out past the perimeter fence between our property and the woods with an ax, a machete, and a swing blade.  I cleared a 12 foot opening.  It looks like a manicured lawn.  My thinking is that a hawk or an owl will more easily spot "le lapin" and swoop down and devour him before he comes to dine in our garden.

Secondly, I set a trap.  I have it baited with carrots and celery.  So far, no rabbit in the trap, but no additional evidence of him eating.

If I'm unsuccessful in stopping Peter Rabbit and friends, the third prong in my plan requires spending a little money.  I'll purchase some chicken wire and run it around the entire perimeter of the garden.  I really don't want to have to do that.  It costs money, requires a lot of work to install, and it can be easily damaged by the goats when they stand up on the garden fence to try to crane their necks over and eat what's growing in the garden.

Hopefully, like the skunk and possum blog post, this story will have a happy ending (for us - not the rabbit.)

My KInd Of Hip Hop

Saturday afternoon I walked across the backyard toward the sweet corn patch.  I am a little concerned about it as it is yellow-looking and isn't growing as it should.  I think it needs some chicken litter to get it moving.  As I was walking to the corn patch, something caught my eye.  Something brown ran past me.  I turned to look and thought I caught sight of a rat running into a big pile of sticks that we had collected from a recent storm.

I'm not a fan of rats.  I kill them on sight.  I walked over to the woodpile with the intention of trying my best to kill the rat.  However, as I looked down into the pile, I pulled this little critter out:

That's not a rat!  It was a young, female bunny rabbit.  I picked her up and brought her inside.  I could feel her heart beating at a rapid pace inside her chest.  The poor little thing was scared.  I gave her to Benjamin to pet for a while.

My first instinct was to go get a cardboard box and try to raise it, but we've learned with other rabbits, squirrels, wood ducks, and other critters, that wild animals are best left in the wild.  I told Benjamin that in the woods just to the south of the hen house, I had seen two adult rabbits the week before in the tall grass.  I'd bet anything that they were this little rabbit's family.

Benjamin set her down amidst a dense canopy of grass and weeds and underbrush. She blended in nicely and you could hardly see her.



She hippity hopped into the woods.  Benjamin tried to follow her and saw one of the adult rabbits I was telling him about.  I'm sure it was the bunny's mom or dad.  We were happy to have reunited the family and saved the little bunny rabbit's life.  Big Boy, our great Pyrenees dog would have eaten the little rabbit as an appetizer.