I decided that my garden blog needed a dormant season—a good freeze over the winter to let its author store up energy for the new season. 

I think that I have successfully rejuvenated myself because during Mother Nature’s little strip tease last week, I found myself repeatedly saying aloud; “now THAT is a bloggable moment.”

Along with the snowdrops and crocuses, many of my blog characters from last spring have reemerged. 

There’s evidence that Peter Rabbit and his mistress have returned to our strawberry patch to cast off another round of offspring. 

The sparrows are back and wreaking havoc in our barn.  Unfortunately for them, my husband is less sympathetic of sparrows tearing insulation out of the barn roof and pooping on his lawn mower than he is of bunnies making abundant love in our garden.

The elderly retired farmer who lives next door has stowed his ice fishing gear (a sure sign of spring) and moved on to burning his fence lines.  There’s just something a little unnerving about watching an old man set fire to your property line with little more than a gasoline drip and a rake.  Maybe I’m underestimating his ability to react swiftly in time of danger, but the man does drive with a post-it note stuck to his steering wheel that says “look both ways.”  Maybe I’d feel better if there was a post-it on his torch that said “don’t burn neighbor’s house down.”

And then there’s one of my main characters and most persistent gardening challenge of all—no, not my husband, but that big wolf-like German Shepherd we call our pet.  This time of year she prefers the earthy pillow of emerging tulips and daffodils over her dog bed and with the ground freshly thawed, she’s not wasting anytime getting her digging paws back into shape.  Last week I caught her in the act of burying a box of fish tackle and later, one of my husband’s t-shirts.  There’s really no way of knowing how many miscellaneous objects this four-legged kleptomaniac has buried on our property.  She did not however, bury the 20 oz. New York Strip Steak she stole hot off the grill a few days ago.  She consumed that juicy steak, with not a hint of remorse, right in front of her horror-struck owners.

Since my characters are back and offering good humorous material, I’m sure my gardens aren’t far behind.  Let the fun begin!

 Let freedom ring
Let the rabbits sing
Let the whole world know that today
is a day of releasing
Let the weak be strong
Let the grass be long
Throw the cage away
Let Doug & Annie pay
It’s Independence Day

After two weeks of lengthy negotiations, my bunny-smitten husband and I finally reached a consensus on when and where to release our five kitchen-raised cottontail rabbits, now fondly referred to as “the kids.”

Loading up the kids and riding off into the morning sunshine

It was a beautiful, balmy, spring morning in Indiana. Doug and I loaded up Jeep and trailer with all of our lawn care equipment (our summer/weekend side job)… and our five rabbits. 

Our first lawn customer was carefully, though unknowingly, selected for their ability to provide our kids with a safe and successful future.  We wouldn’t normally condone dumping wild animals in someone’s yard without their permission, but we didn’t think that the 90-something yr-old lady in the nursing home would care much about these five bunnies livening up her uninhabited, semi-dilapidated farmstead.  We knew that there was a big brush pile that would make a perfect half-way-house for the kids. 

All five munchkins happily hopped off into the crevices of the brush right on cue. 

Not quite as swanky as our kitchen, but this brush pile should keep the foxes at bay

Best of luck to you Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail!  We apologize for disrupting the natural course of your life, but hope ya’ll live happily and ever after in your  new home.  Our garden thanks you for your sacrifice.

1.  No naming.
2.  No petting.

Doug would like you all to know that Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail are all healthy, eating us out of lawn and fridge, and are getting noticeably bigger every day.  (Seriously, you would not believe how much these fist-sized creatures eat.  It would’ve been cheaper just to let them eat my garden than to feed them all this organic produce from my fridge.) 

But can I really scold my husband for having a big heart for small mammals?  My life could be so much worse.

We’re still negotiating their return to the wild.  I’m campaigning for Saturday.

Umm... this is not exactly what I had in mind when I talked about trying to keep the bunnies as WILD as possible. Here's Doug and Benjamin Bunny watching American Idol on the couch together.

The five (I swear there are five there) hungry monsters

We originally built the fence to provide Maddie with a big enclosed dog yard where she would be safe and stay out of trouble while we were at work.  We quickly learned that her only trouble WAS that fence and that she was far safer on the outside of it than on the inside, where she would spend her hours plotting and executing her next perilous escape (to the front porch to sleep quietly until we came home).  We now fence in our gardens rather than our pets and have one very happy free-range dog. 

Doug and I were out in the garden last weekend thinning out our strawberry plants — something we should have done last fall.  Foreshadowing the day’s events, I had just read online that alongside slugs and birds, rabbits can be detrimental to strawberry patches because they like to dine on strawberry flowers. 

Maddie seemed unusually interested in this thinning process.

Ahhh… this would be why.

This is a nest of adorable baby cottontail rabbits… 

…that will someday very soon grow into big hungry menacing rabbits that will eat our garden and multiply exponentially into more hungry menacing rabbits that will eat more of our garden.

Awesome.

So these rabbits are reproducing WITHIN the protection of the very fence that’s supposed to keep them out.  On the other side of the fence, Maddie takes great pleasure in keeping the population of less-fortunate bunny rabbits in check. 

But now that we’ve laid eyes on this furry little bundle of cuteness, can we be so cold-hearted as to knowingly turn the nest over to the unforgiving jaws of our canine beast?

Do we sacrifice our garden or do we sacrifice these innocent fuzzballs?  The longer I look at them, the more real life is blurred by watercolor visions of Peter Rabbit in a bright blue jacket.  Mr. McGregor gave me nightmares as a kid.  I don’t want to be Mrs. McGregor.  But I also have strong motherly instincts towards my garden and a hands-off ethic when it comes to interfering with young wildlife.  

In the past few months, I’ve continued to have “who are you?” moments when my husband does something so contrary to the person that I thought I married.  (Thankfully, I have more pleasant surprises than bad ones.)  Doug, who regularly shoots nesting swallows out of our barn rafters, is apparently, completely smitten with baby rabbits.  I found myself lecturing to him that these are not domestic rabbits, they are wild animals.  Overpopulated wild animals.  And no, he can’t keep them as pets.

Knowing that they were too young to a.) run away, and b.) survive without a Mama (a role that I wasn’t going to volunteer for), we left them in their nest for another week while we weighed our options.

Today we moseyed back out to the garden and took a quick peek down under the leaves and fur.  Instantly, a tiny bunny bolted from the nest, leapt off the raised bed, and darted under the toolshed to begin its long and carefree life in our garden.  It was clearly time to act.  Relocate or terminate remaining bunnies now or forever serve nibbled-leaf salads.  We didn’t consider termination as an option.  It’s Easter Eve for gosh sake.

Re-investigating the bunny situation after leaving them alone for a week

Project relocation began.  Upon extracting the remaining five bunnies from the nest, we realized that two of the five were much smaller than the others and we weren’t sure they’d be able to survive on their own yet.  We decided we’d keep them together for another week in a makeshift bunny cage to ensure that they were all ready for the real world.  I had two rules for my soft-hearted husband:  1.  No naming.  2.  No petting.

Stealing bunnies one-by-one from their Five-star garden spa accommodations.

Doug cut a rectangle out of the lid of a big plastic storage container, screwed on an old screen, and plopped in some straw, a small blanket, and five bunnies.  I offered them a salad bar of green grass, dandelion greens, and organic lettuce. 

One bunny keeping watch while the other four snooze under the blanket

I did some Google searches on rearing baby rabbits and feel very thankful that we left them in the nest with their mother for that extra week.  They are biologically complex little buggers.  I don’t think feeding baby rabbits every 2-3 hours with an eye-dropper at my office desk would have gone over well.  I’m fairly confident they’re now old enough to survive solely on solid foods.

Stay tuned for our bunny progress and Happy Easter!