Our chuck of St. Paul has been taken over by rabbits. Old rabbits, baby rabbits, mama and daddy rabbits. There all here on our block. One morning, I counted seven rabbits in one yard.
About a month ago, while walking down the alley, I noticed nine rabbits total: 3 senior, 3 juvenile, 3 babies.
I’m not sure how many we have now — I haven’t looked up the breeding cycle of the bunny to find out how many more may have been created in the last month.
They are terribly cute, hopping their way down the alley or across the yard. There’s an older rabbit (I’m guessing that by the amount of white fur around its eyes) that I have named The Easter Bunny. This particular rabbit has been around since Easter, and it has a strange habit — it doesn’t run right away when the kids and I approach. And I think it laughs when Laddie has a rabbit-inspired barking fit.
For as cute as these rabbits are, they sure can destroy things in a hurry.
I have several new rose bushes, including three that are in a semi-fenced part of the backyard, next to the tomatoes. I had watered the tomatoes and roses one evening. When I came home from work the next day, all the leaves were gone from the rose bushes — as were several about-to-bloom roses.
The neighborhood rabbits must have had a party in my roses. There were a lot of leaves and buds. More than just one or two rabbits could eat. I think it must have been the Bunny Eat-In of the Year.
I mentioned to John that my bushes had been stripped of their leaves by a rabbit dining club. He was surprised. He had noticed the rose were missing their leaves earlier that morning. He thought I had some weird new rose bush pruning approach this year, and I had stripped the roses myself the night before.
A week later, the roses are starting to sprout new leaves, but it will be a while before I get new rose buds. The roses are recovering behind wire structures that look like a Gitmo exercise area.