Last year the dark recesses of the deck hosted a family of raccoons. Their squabbles and chatter their only signature. The two siblings stayed till mid summer and then the chatter ceased. Try as I might I never did locate their burrow. However, our local Sylvilagus floridanus, being lower to the ground and able to crawl under the stored lumber pile was not going to pass up an already excavated home. Come springtime, some well placed chicken/bunny wire should have bugs bunny seeking a new residence. In the mean time the eastern cottontail is welcome to our local fast food restaurant. Where is the hawk when you need him? Sylvilagus floridanus What's for lunch? Now he sees me!! ) RUN!! HIDE!! Jerry
Someone can have some of our bunnies (hey Mart, want to pay the postage?). We have bunnies that sun in the grass outside the chicken coop. I think they have bonded with our girls. They had a home under the workshop until the skunk arrived--now the bunnies are living in the barn and my husband is trying to hold his breath while working in the shop. We are trying to live with the local wildlife, but the local wildlife seems determined to take over the farm!
I think bunnies are cute, but then we haven't got any wild ones. I guess our climate is too harsh, and the foxes eat the pet ones that break out from their cages.
Oh Jerry, that is the same bugger that has been munching my shrubs! He seems to come out at night, and much be hiding under the deck. I think there are actually several of them because there seems to be a variety of paw sizes.
Last spring, this one or one of its cousins made breakfast, lunch and dinner of ALL the Campanula in the yard. Five locations and not a flower to be had. :-( This spring I will experiment with a Jalapeño spray. Or maybe a barbed wire fence with watch towers, searchlights and machine-guns. :twisted: I WILL have Campanula flowers next year. Jerry
So glad he's yours and not mine. You want a few squirrels and woodchucks to complete the picture? Will gladly send them your way.
Squirrels?…..hmmmm……only if they fly. Those are cute. Oh, ones that store acorns. I could use as many of those that you could spare. If you do send some let me know so I can build some squirrel houses and stock up on acorns. All my grey squirrels are frustrated as they can not touch my bird feeders. I can send rabbits……well, Mart has first choice of rabbits…..but if it is a female then I will have plenty of rabbits to go around. No, I don't need gophers. Gopher sites have fallen out of favor since the web has been up and running. Hmmm…I wonder if rec. gardens is still running……be back in a minute……tic…tic…tic...back…..I googled rec. gardens it is a "google group"……interesting. Jerry
Jerry--I can s-o-o relate about your frustration with the bunnies. But....what does rec.gardens have to do with rabbits, squirrels & acorns?
Many, many years ago, before the WWW there were Gopher sites using a Gopher protocol where a text message was posted on a bulletin board. Rec.gardens is one of many hundreds of sites. They still run today. I have not posted to one in 20 years. Donna's offer of woodchucks reminded me of gopher sites. Somewhere I still have threads from rec. gardens on z-fold paper. Printed by a line printer attached to an IBM 370 mainframe. I had to blow the cobwebs off that thought. Jerry I vaguely remember using ftp to access the site, it is easier now with google and HTTP Ref: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.gardens
I know about bunny frustration. We have to erect fences around our garden plots or else they would eat everything. We have a mixture of tame and wild rabbits. Do you know what people do? after the fun and newness of rabbits given to kids around christmas they bring them to the our gardening complex and just throw them over the fence. I cannot imagine what kind of anti-social being it must be to do something like that. There are other options. It is the same thing every year.
We have very few rabbits left in our woods. I just see the occasional bunny track. Either the fox or the trappers have cleaned them out.
We have a baby bunny in our garden every year. It munches and scampers about the garden, just inches out of reach. Through the early spring, through the mid-spring, through the early summer....until....one day it is gone. I presume a fox gets them eventually.
