Wednesday, April 08, 2009

This morning, I left for work in tears. Well... not REALLY... but I was close to it.

And it is for such a silly reason. It really is. In fact, when I called to tell my husband about it, he laughed. Not at me, mind you... but still. He laughed. Sigh.

You see, the source of my sorrow has a lot of my emotion invested in it, and my heart just broke.

I'm sure by now, you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about.

Well.

Remember the raised garden bed my wonderful, talented, loving and generous husband built me? It is a thing of beauty. And this weekend, he filled it with a wonderful combination of top soil and leaf compost. I'm telling you -- it was a vision of beauty! (I may even post some pics soon!!)

I love this man.

And Hunter helped. He loves to help. Although, sometimes, his help creates just a wee bit more work for us. Anyway...

Hunter and I planted one batch of lettuce plants on Sunday afternoon. They are just beautiful. Tender, young, vibrant green – perfect. And this weekend? We were going to plant FOUR more batches of various varieties of tender, succulent, sweet lettuce plants! I just couldn't wait.

And today? I come down the stairs to leave for work and the crack-o-dawn, peered out the window to make sure yesterday's spits of snow and the cold evening didn't ruin my lettuce plants... only to see RABBITS!!! EATING MY LETTUCE!!!

Silly Rabbits! Lettuce is for PEOPLE! At least ... in MY garden it is!!!

Now to most people, the word "rabbit" conjures up wonderful thoughts of sweet, soft, fluffy, adorable, brown-eyed, floppy-eared, cotton-tailed spring-time animals.

In MY mind... the word "rabbit" is CLOSE to a swear word. Not quite... but really, REALLY close. I love the thought of providing healthy, beautiful, organic, home-grown vegetables and salads for my family. It does me a world of good to know they are getting good stuff in them. It is almost a source of pride. But I know that pride is a very bad thing ... so I try to steer away from it. AHEM.

As I was saying, those bad, wascially wabbits – they are chowing down at my family"s expense, and man! That just burns me up. I feel like going all "Elmer Fudd" on them... Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wabbits!

My husband promised to bring home some "construction fabric" and some stakes to remedy this problem. I'm thinking more along the lines of barbed wire and a big ol' shotgun. But then, I'm sure my neighbors would complain to... someone... anyone. I'm not sure who, though. We'll see if my husband's idea helps.

Have I mentioned how much I love that man?

So... I'm open to any suggestions. If you have them, PLEASE ... SHARE!!!

(Except for hot pepper flakes. That didn't work last year on my flowers, and it probably won't work on these gourmet rabbits – they would look at it as a tasty seasoning atop their sweet, tender, lettuce).


"Pardon me, but you know,


you wook just wike a wabbit!"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey GiBee - you should see my parent's garden, it's like a mini-fortress. They didn't only have rabbits, but deer as well. Their solution? Fine netting all the way around their garden put up with stakes around the edges. It has worked for them for many many years.

If you want to come by, I'm sure my dad would love to show it to you.

SBEE

Anonymous said...

We have a large garden too and find that fox urine is a good deterrent for rabbits and for deer. It's expensive and doens't smell....well, you get the picture...but it works!

Susanne said...

Oh dear. That silly rabbit! I'm sorry I have no suggestions for you. I have a totally black thumb.

Donnetta said...

I feel the same way about deer.

Our first year in this house I grew 96 seedling plants indoors, spent 4 hours planting them outdoors and the very next morning... gone, every last one of them! Frustrating to say the least...