Baby Hate

I am on vacation. But this was the garden under attack on May 25, 2004

Now, my dears,' said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, '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 don't want to be Mr. McGegor. Or even Mrs. McGregor. But leave it to babies, particular baby bunnies, to fuck everything up. This was the most perfect year for peas. This was the year my peas would come out all right. I dedicated two beds to them, built elaborate teepees covered in brush, bought four varieties, planted them early in the raised beds I had warmed just for that purpose when the rest of the ground was still frozen. And at the very moment when they were gorgeous, the moment when the peas in their enthusiasm meant everything to me, Mrs. Rabbit bore a brood of bunnies in the brush pile. My peas became baby food.

At first I tried to stay calm. I have so much of everything planted that I can bear a little damage. I just hoped the rabbits would dine buffet style, rather than destroying one crop. But no, only the peas, straight for the peas, always the peas, the pea beds shaking with the munching of several rabbits the size of toddler shoes.

So I built the first makeshift fence. Useless except to trap the baby bunnies in. Then a second -- still useless. Finally a third, multilayered, and though I found one baby in there once (and how I could have slaughtered that little shit with nothing but a bamboo pole and my bare hands) I readjusted the weak spot, think the few peas that are left are safe.

Safe, but few. And the beds are so hard to work in that I feel appalled, want to just give the whole pea project up. I am going to plant beans on the teepees today, so as not to have the structures wasted. And I see the bunnies have been attacking my beet greens, too. Leave it to the cute to be so lethel.

And in June:

I hate the baby bunnies so, their perky little ears, their frothy little tails.

Last night in the midst of a gothic labyrinth of a dream, I encountered a man who looked very much like Jack White. He offered me a selection of dehydrated rabbit pelts, the ears and tails still on. This alone kept the dream from being classified a nightmare.

I have no beets left. After the baby bunnies, one would suspect I had never planted beets at all.

The only peas left to eat are snow peas. The dreams I had of english peas in cream are dashed against the reality of this adorable menace.

I will consider French cooking, lapincide, platters of baby bunnies dressed with mustard

Comments

[ilona]

A time when cats come in handy, yes indeed.
But they produce their own garden problems.

I have seen grown men tear up when they describe the decimation of their pea plants.

For me, it was a warren of rabbits that burrowed into my once thriving stand of Siberian iris. It was the cats who put an end to that..... but the iris never recovered fully.

[Chan S.]

Sing it, sister!

[jenn]

Mmm... rabbit stew.