Abusing the Fluffy Bunnies

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I didn’t want to hijack the thread which inspired this rant against the fluffy bunnies, but Levdrakon absolutely deserves the credit for reminding me how much I hate the fluffy bunnies: (I hope this is coded correctly)http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=318331

I live in a suburb of Chicago, listed on my profile. One of the things my wife and I liked best about our neighborhood was the general greenery. Almost every lawn is well-tended, the backyards are full of trees, laughing children, sweet, senescent oldsters, and multiple varities of shrubs and bushes.

I love fruit. Particularly, I love berries. Be they gooseberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, rasberries, blueberries, whatever! All berries are wonderful.

I am not the only being in the neighborhood that thinks so. And I’m not talking about my neighbor, who I’ve invited to take as many blackberries each morning as he likes.

It’s the bunnies. We have a fence, but it’s more of the decorative wooden variety, good for keeping in small children and some dogs. Apparently, it doesn’t divert the fluffy bunnies for more than a picosecond.

So…I go out this morning to coerce the puppy into peeing and #2-ing, and I am shocked to see my chokeberry bush/tree denuded of all lower limbs. It’s not an old bush/tree, having been planted in early April of this year. I want to use it to absorb some water runoff in my yard’s swale, and I’ve been told it will do so, provided it actually grows. My roar of anguish rocks the very earth I’m stading upon. The birds fly from the trees, the shingles fall off the roof, and small babies lose their faith in a just world.

And…the fucking bunny is still sitting there, chewing contentedly on a suspiciously chockberry-looking branch. I turn to the puppy (Newton), and say in a enthusiastic manner “get him, Newt!” The puppy looks at me and resumes deconstruction of the pine cone. I consider it a good thing in retrospect, as I don’t want Newton to get Rabies or anything too virulent and rabbit-related.

I run toward the bunny abruptly, and predicatbly, it bolts through my fence (might as well be constructed of water vapor), into the sunrise.

All of the lower branches are gone. This bush/tree/thing will never have low-lying branches, due to the fluffy bunny.

I stalk back into the house, and meet my wife coming downstairs for her morning orange juice. She sees that I’m angry and asks:

"What's the matter....did Newton pee on the floor?"

Inarticulate with rage, I point out the screen door. There’s nothing there. My wife shakes her head and wanders to the fridge. After calming down, I (foolishly) express my wish to purchase a pellet gun to get rid of the bunnies. I might as well have suggested placing her sister in a volcano.

 "Why would you hurt an animal!!??"

Still angry, I talk about the general difficulty of growing bushes (OK, they’re plant-and-grow, but she doesn’t know that), about how bunnies in the yard could “leave” rabies in the yard, and how we don’t want Newton to turn into a vicious, bunny-eating beast.

My wife looks calmly at me, then the door, and tells me to “deal with it”.

I drive into work this morning…The first thing I read when I pull up the cover page of the local news is that there are …coyotes…in the area, eating garbage, etc.

On my way home tonight, I will buy two delicious, fragrant pieces of meat. I will put them by the chokebery bush in hopes that the fluffy bunnies will be shocked to see a carnivore guarding my berries and tree/shrub.

Then, I’ll try to blame it on the neighbor when my wife asks.

2

Ummm, put some chicken wire around the bush – problem solved?

If you move into what sounds like the set for a Disney movie, you have to expect the occasional fuzzy bunny.
In my neighborhood, it’s the groundhogs that regularly, every year, strip my sunflowers to the ground. Or it could be bunnies. Planting more sunflowers so that there’d be enough for everyone was not effective. I finally spent $200.00 on fencing to protect $10.00 worth of seeds.

3

Just to give you fair warning. You might want to take a look at this

They may look harmless…

For a look at the cover, go here, scroll down to 1990 and click on the title.

4

<sigh> Yes, I’m actually stopping off at the Home Depot this evening on the way home for some chicken wire. I really wanted to try the coyote-solution, though. Did you try calling Carl the Assistant Groundskeeper?

As far as the Craig Shaw Gardner book…I must have seen that book somewhere. Now, I woll have nightmares of AK-47-wielding bunnies…Thanks for nothing, Odinoneye.

5

You could sprinkle the bushes with cayenne pepper - that works for my parents.

6

Even if you killed dozens of bunnies, still more would come to eat your plants. Fencing is the only answer. 3-ft. high vinyl coated rabbit wire, inside your ornamental wooden fence will keep them out. Then they’ll eat your neighbors’ plants. If you had the only yummy plants for a half mile, they might dig underneath. As it is, they won’t bother.

Some kinds of rabbits are rumored to jump 4-ft. fences, but midwestern cotton-tails cannot.

7

Mmm, that fluffy bunny on the left can nibble my gooseberries anytime.

8

You couldn’t have just asked them not to nosh on your berry bushes?

9

You just described the argument I recently had with my sister.

The Fluffy Bunny ate so many of my mom’s flowers the whole garden area started to look barren. Mr. Fluffy Bunny loved to taunt me near the rose trellace as I walked out to my car to go to work on spring mornings. One day after a particularly gruesome loss of plant life, I brought Miss Daisy with me on my way to the car.

Of course, within days, my sister notices the absence of Mr. Fluffy Bunny and wonders aloud where he might have gone. I explain that he was dispatched to the level of Hades reserved for those with confirmed tulip kills of 1,000 or greater. And of course, I get…

“Why would you want to hurt a defenseless animal?”

This is the same sister that wants me to lay waste to any field mice that happen to take up residence in our living quarters, squoosh any insect that finds a way through the window screens, and who once made me come home from an industry event to dispatch a pigeon that had made a wrong turn and came in the window. (I actually managed to capture the pigeon with a blanket and release it unharmed.)

10

This thread is simply far too adorable for the Pit. It has a puppy, fluffy bunnies, and the word “#2-ing”.

I’ll send it over to MPSIMS. I’m guessing it’ll be right up SkipMagic’s alley. (Rumor has it he’s a bit twee.)

11

Adopt a greyhound.

(so says the fellow resident of a Chicago 'burb)

12

So I can have two puppies investating pine cones while my chokeberries are being raped? No thanks!

Cayenne pepper, huh? Maybe I’ll try that.

My first try was to take my dog’s fecal matter and spread it around the bottom of the bush/tree. My hope was that the stink of dog crap would scare away the fluffy bunnies. Apparently not.

Then, thinking that maybe a puppy-stink wasn’t fearsome enough, I actually (please don’t tell my neighbor) over my fence to collect my neighbor’s Akita’s turd-collection

I feel very weird about this. I swear the Akita looked oddly at me this morning. It was a snap decision.

13

Did you read in the Sun Times today about the Fluffy Bunny invasion of Millenium Park ?

14

Bunnies aren’t just cute
Like everybody supposes!
They’ve got them hoppy legs
And twitchy little noses
And what’s with all the carrots?
What do they need
Such good eyesight for
Anyway?

Bunnies!
Bunnies!
It must be bunnies!

15

That’s your solution. En garde, fluffy bunny! And then you just put your rapier on a nice fire like a roast-spit. Instant barbecue! :slight_smile:

16

That is the funniest thing I’ve read today. Thank you, Lars!

As for the OP, I’d recommend trapping one o’ them coyotes you mentioned, semi-domesticating it, and keeping it by the berry bushes. Don’t feed him too much, either. And when you do feed him, give him bunny burgers, cottontail casserole, rabbit ribs, jackrabbit jambalaya, hare hash, and leg of lagomorph so he really develops a taste for all things small, fluffy, and cute.

17

Darn, TheOnlySaneOne beat me to it with teh Anya song/quote.

Brian

18

My dad was having a problem with rabbits in his vegetable garden. Someone told him to plant a border of marigolds around it because, apparently, bunnies don’t like the taste of marigolds. So, he planted about a million of the suckers. There were marigolds so thick around the garden you could barely see the pepper plants.

The bunnies ate all the marigolds and had green peppers for dessert.

19

I have that series, and read that CSG book! I think I knew, before I even clicked on the link, that that is what it was going to be!

BTW, the “fluffy bunny” on the left is actually the mother of one of the main characters. She’s good with a whip, and likes leather.

20

When I was a wee lad, I had a pet rabbit who’d escape his outdoor pen without digging any tunnels. It was really mysterious. We finally caught him in the act, climbing the chicken wire and just jumping for it when he reached the top. There are photographs. So if you go with the fencing plan, be sure to bend the top outward so that the fluffy bunnies can’t climb for it.