I like rabbits, I really do.

But two of the last homes I have lived in, I have been plagued with some of the hungriest little cottontails that have managed to decimate any of the feeble attempts to make my homes seem a little greener.

Makes me get a hankering for Hasenpfeffer just thinking about them.

Growing up, they were not that common of a sight, dispite their quickness, they were rarely a match for our cattle dogs or the small army of cats that prowled the farmstead.  When we did see them, they weren’t in the yard for very long - and rarely did the dog or cat let them rest if they managed to sneak into the garden.

Occasionally, you would end up with a stray cottontail that could ellude the dogs and cats and go to work on the garden.  But we counted on that garden to make it through to the next year as well, and more drastic means were called upon.  One good shot from the twenty-two rifle would take care of it - I don’t know if we ever actually killed one that way, but it scared the malted milk balls out of them enough to make sure they never came back.

When I bought my first house in the midst of the city, I wanted to test my green thumb and farming skills amid the crop of 1950’s story and a half homes.  Digging up a corner of my yard, my retired neighbor watched my progress.

“I love fresh vegetables, reminds me of growing up on the farm,” my neighbor said as he puffed on his cigerette.

“Yup, agree.” I said “Beans, peas, corn - I’m going to grow as much as I can on this fifteen square foot piece of earth.”

“Good” my neighbor said as he rubbed the tattoos on his arm, “the only thing I like more then fresh vegetables is watching those cute little rabbits running and playing through our back yard.”

I knew I was in trouble.

A quick check at the garden center said I had two options.  One - get a dog.  Two - try planting marigolds around the perimeter of the garden.  Rabbits hate the smell of marigolds.  Since I lived in a small house, with a smaller yard (half of which was soon to be a cornicorpia of produce).  I chose option two.

The garden grew.  The corn, the beans, the peas, the spinich, the cabbage and totatoes, they all grew.

Little did I know that the rabbits were only waiting long enough to make sure they had a full feast.

Every morning I’d get up and see a family of rabbits happily munching on my garden.  I swear I saw one reading a tiny rabbit newspaper and another picking its teeth with a toothpick.  I was expecting to find a card by the backdoor thanking me for planting the floors around their pantry.

Thoughts of pellet guns, poisons, and death traps raced through my mind - but everytime I’d go outside, it seemed my neighbor would remind me as he worked on his Harley - “I sure do like seeing those rabbits everyday.”

I managed to get one tomato out of that nice little garden.

When I was shopping for my second house in the same neighborhood (a job in Ohio had me move for two years), I found a nice house, almost identical to the first.  Looking at the house, the only thing growing in the garden on that nice spring day were the tulips.  As a farmboy, I new the perinniel was low mainentence and good to look at in the spring - like some of the farm girls I knew from college.

The first spring, I was excited as the snow melted and the first green shoots sprung from the ground.  Then one morning - they were all gone.  Nibbled to nothing by the same varmints that destroyed my first garden.  Both my new neighbors were sympathetic…to the poor bunny rabbits.

“Well they don’t have much else to eat out here - nothing else is growing.” Darn city slickers.

This year, I think I’ve finally found the solution, I’ve poor vineger all around the garden edging.  Everytime I notice a rabbit getting close, I poor on more vineger.

My tulips are close to full bloom.  Only a few have gotten tasted.  And the poor rabbits are looking longingly from a distance and I can see them saying to me, “what’s up doc.”

Now I just hope that vineger smell manages to go away before the snow flies this fall…