Under the Strawberries

In the spring, I was tidying up the garden when I noticed that one of my strawberry plants had died.

Strawberry bed without chicken wire cover.

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The strawberry bed has a foot high metal wall with chicken wire on top. When I lifted the wire to pull up the dead plant, I found that some stupid b*tch bunny had hopped on top of the chicken wire and clawed and chewed her way into the bed. She dug a hole under one of my unlucky plants and laid her clutch of fur-covered destroyers. When I picked up the plant, I found a huge wad of her hair where the roots should have been and three sleeping vermin underneath.

Evil lagomorphs where strawberry should be.

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I tried to shoo the undersized monsters away to wreak their havoc elsewhere, but they were stubbornly reluctant to leave.

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Voracious cuniculus is trying to blend in with the dirt.

(I’m not gonna eat that strawberry. Honest.)

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Hence the term “harebrained”.

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You can’t see me!

(Oh yes I can.)

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For the rabbit lovers out there, no cottontails were (seriously) harmed in the making of this blog post. (My turnips, peas and strawberries suffered, however!!) I did tell them that if I caught them in the garden again I would make Hasenpfeffer out of them. So far they’ve wisely heeded my warning.

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Murphy putting his terrier stink in the garden to try to keep the pests away.

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Hello? Are there any bunnies in there?

Speckled Eggs at Easter

Can you find the eggs hidden in this picture?

Since I took this picture, the Mama Killdeer (or perhaps it was the Papa Killdeer?) laid another egg.

Here is one of the parent (birth-giver?) birds sitting on the nest. When they are still, it can be quite difficult to find them.

If Toby comes near the nest, the Killdeer try to lead him away from it. This parent (I mean birth-giver) is right on the edge of the gravel heading toward the grass.

If the bird still feels threatened, it will poop while running away. Then it will chirp a lot and do a broken wing display. Toby is very entertained by this. He has high hopes that someday he will catch this bird.

The Killdeer made this nest at a nearby church. I am sure to them it seemed like a wonderfully peaceful location with hardly anyone around. Then along came Easter, and the world went crazy. But, perhaps they did this on purpose. Maybe sitting on a nest is boring, and this is like theater to them.

Let’s make it interactive theater, shall we?

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Dream Our World

If you would like more interactive activities with Toby, come to the Museum of the Imagination in Dream Our World. Inside my two Cairn boys explore the world of art from a canine perspective and enjoy a day of unsupervised fun.

Dream Our World and other fine gifts are available in my shop at L Bowman Studios.