Bookish Gardener

No regrets, Coyote.

On her walk to school through the soccer fields behind our house, my seventh-grader happened upon the partially devoured hind-end remains of what she extrapolates was once a full-sized rabbit. Ah, the circle of life. (But when will the circle be unbroken for the j. beetles, who are still flouting their Labor Day curfew?)

Aside from her lesson in the law of the jungle, our daughter is enjoying more pleasant lessons in her Computers class. She brought home her first quiz yesterday. The first word on the test: "blog". (She aced the test.)

Fox trot

Busy afternoon yesterday dismantling the garden for the season. A handful of nights below twenty degrees had finally freeze-blasted most of the stalwarts last week. Goodbye, nicotiana...goodbye, borage...goodbye, petunias...goodbye, sweet peas. As I was going about my chores, a crazy, angry chorus of caws interrupted the sunny afternoon. A mob of crows in high dudgeon was in angry pursuit of a red fox. It ran for its life, coming within mere feet of our back yard, and traversed half the perimeter of the neighboring athletic fields before disappearing into wooded protection. How cool! I thought at first—a red fox, in broad daylight. And then, a shiver of foreboding, remembering the fox as the favored avatar of evil spirits in Korean ghost stories from my childhood. But, then again, no less an authority than the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reports that the red fox's "favorite dish is the cottontail rabbit". So—yo, Renard! Right this way—rabbit buffet!

Lapinicide

The writer at the new garden blog Tender Dirt tells it like it is when it comes to those blasted bunnies. There are too many good lines in her post to choose from, but for now my favorite is: "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." And so it is that we join Robert the Llama Butcher in declaiming: "Mr. MacGregor Was Right!"

Haasenpfeffer, indeed

Another reason I'm a fan of Tabasco sauce. Thanks to Farm Accident Digest for the link.

...and now for your irregularly scheduled rabbit eradication post

This summer's third generation of Sauron's Wraith Rabbits (^TM LlamaButcher [and Hard-Core Gardener] Robert) has shown up in the garden, wreaking their usual havoc. Border bedding gazania—gone. Groundcover hyacinth bean—gone. My heart sinks to see more new baby bunnies. They are not cute. They are a nightmare, and a plague. One of them has a particularly bad attitude. Instead of the usual panicked, spring-loaded retreat when confronted with the human, this one merely proceeds to a different section of the garden with a sauntering lope. Yesterday, it stared back at me, squatted, and made a deposit of pellets for all to see. Today, it stared back at me, and went into a full yoga stretch (the cow asana, I believe). Don't be so cocky, I say. There's an expert in the use of Kentucky windage in the house. And the new blackberry bushes are very, very hungry.

If you're hungry for rabbit, I commend to you a series of recipes from A Birdwatcher's Cookbook by Erma J. (Jonnie) Fisk, who was married to Roger Tory Peterson. They're pretty simple; the basic principle is marinate the heck out of 'em and cook 'em "just like chicken" (fried, roasted, braised, stewed...you get the idea). (The book also includes recipes for "Black-eyed rabbit" and "Tomato rabbit", but they turn out to be variants of Welsh rarebit, with no rabbit sacrifice required. Let's move on, shall we?)

A quirky anecdote from the rabbit chapter of the cookbook is titled "Winged Rabbit":

You have to think, though. On Cape Cod one day, to introduce northern friends to rabbit, I bought a frozen one. The directions on the package said to use honey in the marinade. I didn't think. When I came to clean my electric frying pan, several packs of S.O.S. later I decided it would be easier to buy a new one—the honey was permanently fused in. Oh, well—I really needed a new pan anyway. This one had seen heavy service, was overdue for replacement. It had been given to me by Ian Nisbet one summer when I house-mothered his ornithological research crew, studying tern colonies on Cape Cod. While it was a sentimental wrench to send it to the Salvation Army, I balanced this with my story to subsequent guests[,] of the woman who had returned the piece of rabbit I had put on her plate, saying she preferred a drumstick to a wing. Wings on a rabbit?

Erma J. Fisk. A Birdwatcher's Cookbook. W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. ISBN 0-393-02502-0.

Mmmm...rabbit...

...although I suppose this would not be a suitable use for the remains of the mangy, long-eared, puff-butt rodent who gnawed down my monkshood last night, and who I can only hope will be making a wolfsbane-induced "final exit" from my green garden.

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be...bunnies!

Yep, I'm in Vengeance Demon mode now. Lessons learned: Even a thus-far-reliable repellent will not deter a rabbit who is truly motivated. Rabbits love 'Silver King' artemisia. Rabbits really love wave petunias. Six 4" pots of them planted in the new white garden border yesterday, duly sprayed with "repellent", and this morning, the only signs left of five of the six are a few tattered leaf fragments. I suppose the varmint was leaving no. 6 for dessert. Since this has got my blood boiling, let's return the favor, shall we?

No matter how long I lived here, I would never make a true countryman. And, as long as I preferred to see a wild boar on the hoof instead of on the plate, I'd never make an adopted Frenchman. Let him worship his stomach; I would maintain a civilized detachment from the blood lust that surrounded me.

This noble smugness lasted until dinner. Henriette had given us a wild rabbit, which my wife had roasted with herbs and mustard. I had two helpings. The gravy, thickened with blood, was wonderful.

Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence. Vintage Books, 1991 (paperback reprint). ISBN 0679731148.

I dream of Jeannie / She's a light brown hare

(Warning: don't be fooled by the title. This is not a bunny-friendly post.) A full day digging in the garden under cloudless blue skies, with temperatures just cool enough to keep the biting bugs dormant just a bit longer (although my Pahss-i-FLOR-a kah-eh-ru-LEH-a was a bit, er, chapped at having to endure last night's frost). Life is good. Or mostly: I see that we've got bunny action on the annual lupins. Now, the rabbit repellent I've been using this season is not bad: its gimmick is to combine rotten fish extract and garlic to repel by smell while providing some foliar feeding. The problem? Not much staying power after a heavy rain, which means the buffet's open for pre-dawn foraging after an overnight downpour. Still, it seems to be working better than the long, sad list of trieds-and-faileds: hot-pepper-and-garlic; castor-oil-in-clay; composted sludge; and my all-time "favorite", livestock blood and vegetable oil. I tried that last one last year after hearing neighborhood gardener buzz about it. A few problems: you spray it and, well, your plants look blood-splattered (because they are), and the smell...eau de old-time meat counter. I can't pronounce the product's name, but I think it's Swedish for "Carrie's Prom Night". I would have stuck with it, explaining away the unique coloration effect as bronze foliage (all the rage these days, you know), but for the fact that it was more effective at repelling humans than rabbits, as the bare stumps of my three sidalcea mallows bore witness. So now the little lapin is after the lupin. Can you blame her? So fresh, so green, so filled with poisonous alkaloids. Surely the gardener can make a little sacrifice for her dining pleasure. So, as they say, bon appetit: from the French for knock yourself out.

D__n straight.

Opinion issued today from the Office of the Attorney General, State of California: "Cottontail and brush rabbits that are eating landscaping, ornamental plants, or gardens may be trapped or killed if it can be established that they are materially harming such plants."

I saw a black crow dining, under blue skies

First, apologies to Joni Mitchell. Second, bunny lovers will want to skip this post.

(But, after all:

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.

Right?)

Yes. There was a black crow feasting on some initially unidentified roadkill, a flattened blur of grey-brown fur and (sorry) pinkish guts. I slowed down to check (because I always have to check). Squirrel or rabbit?--Cottontail. And Bookish Gardener said: YESSSS.

For more a more literary (and cathartic) exposition of how I really feel about these varmints, here's Louise Beebe Wilder:

In a single night a foraging bunny will eat your Crocus patches clean, ignoring utterly the fresh lettuce leaves that have been left temptingly about. [....] Cats are a help, but here, unhappily, we have been obliged to resort to a rifle after losing our Crocuses for several seasons in succession. [....] It is easy to see to what a rabid state of mind the gentlest and most humane of persons may be brought by the destruction of his beloved Crocuses. The gun in a sure hand is the most unfailing weapon.

Adventures with Hardy Bulbs. Louise Beebe Wilder. Colliers Books (1990 edition). ISBN 0-02-040840-4.