"That Wascally Wabbit"
I look outside my apartment window and I see our own private Easter Bunny preening himself in our courtyard four floors below. (I am on the forth floor of our Apartment Building"). I call him "our own" because he spends alot of time in our yard. When I first saw him, when I moved in here three years ago, I cringed. Oh, it's not that I don't like bunnies. I truly do. In fact, I had some very pleasant experiences with a jackrabbit that we raised from a baby when we were on the farm. (His story is related in this blog back on January 16.) That was a GOOD jackrabbit. It's just that I have encountered BAD jackrabbits since, so I now view these cute rascals with a wary eye.
When I lived in Dauphin, I had a resident jackrabbit that caused me no end of frustration. I used to plant alot of flowers around my home. (One year I even won a prize for my beautiful flowered yard.)
However, those flowers did not come cheap, thanks to a resident jackrabbit that had a penchant for flowers and my petunias were his special favorite. He would eat the young plants down to the ground and I would have to replant them again – and again. One time as he sat there chewing on my painted daisies near the fence, totally oblivious to my unveiled threats, I got so angry I took a slingshot and shot at him. Of course I could not hit the broad side of a barn. The pebble zinged by between his ears and just made him look up as if to say, “What was that?” Then, unperturbed, he just went on eating, unabashedly ignoring this neurotic woman that was attempting to cause him unnecessary stress.
As a rule, I love animals and bunnies are particularly cute, but if I could have been a better shot, I would gladly have finished that moocher off. I used tons of paprika and cayenne pepper on my plants and all it did was delay him until the next rain or heavy morning dew, though I do believe he did develop a taste for spicy salad. He never paid room and board. He just made himself at home on my lawn between feedings, relaxing, sprawled lazily out on the grass near the flowers like it was his own private estate!
So you can understand why I didn't trust the jackrabbits here in Edmonton. But I'm eating crow now. Alberta bunnies are GOOD bunnies. Our gardener plants alot of flowers and in the three years I have been here, the rabbits have not touched any of them. Are Alberta jackrabbits specially trained to be GOOD???
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