Background Noise
Frippery Stalled At the Fence
In the background as I type this, I hear the steady sound of Jim putting up a rabbit fence. Despite our best efforts to close gaps in our aging fence, Frippery Wigglenose Scamperbutt, the rapidly growing baby bunny keeps coming in to eat our bean plants, as well as whatever else he fancies. Most recently, he tried some exotic Shock-o-Lat sunflowers, nipping them off where they won’t be able to grow back. Given that he ignored wild sunflower plants of the same size, I admit to being a bit irate.
We actually have a new fence for the west side of our yard on order, but it won’t go up until sometime in July. Until then, we’re learning what Frippery likes. Bean plants are definitely on the top of his list. Variety doesn’t seem to matter. He’s sampled three varieties of teppary beans, Rattlesnakes, and Purple Queen. He’s tried sunflowers. He’s nibbled Swiss chard. So far he doesn’t like tomato plants or squash plants. He hasn’t tried the basil, which is a blessing, because he could mow down the row of seedlings in about three minutes.
We have another reason for wanting to keep Frippery out of our backyard. Our two guinea pigs, Ziggy and Dandelion, have a hutch outside in the shade of the larger catalpa tree. We don’t know if wild rabbits carry anything that wouldn’t benefit guinea pigs, but we don’t want to find out. Ziggy, in particular, is a bit fragile. She loves grass, which we don’t have much of at the best of times, and in this very dry late spring, early summer, we have even less of. I don’t want Frippery to eat or contaminate Ziggy’s treat.
Still, at times I feel just a little like Farmer McGregor from the Peter Rabbit stories, although we’d never go so far as to have Frippery or PF in a pie.
On that cheerful note, I’m back to focusing on minutia and the like, as Wolf’s Search moves closer step by step to publication.
Take care!
