The Owl and the Rabbits

We first bought the owl because a bird was crashing into our front window. It wouldn’t stop. Again and again it would hit the window, trying to land on some decorative stained glass flowers. We bought a plastic owl to try to frighten the bird into leaving us alone. Eventually the bird came to understand that the owl was fake, either that or landing on the fake flowers was enough of a priority to risk death. We had to cover up the beautiful flowers to get the bird to go away. Then we were left with the owl.

The rabbits were born in our garden. When we bought the house, the previous owner left us with two plots of earth marked out by wooden planks. The kids and I turned the first bed easily, and we planted radishes and lettuce.

“I could start on the second bed.” I told my husband, as we all toiled in the garden.

He looked up from his radishes and nodded.

I grabbed my trowel and set to work turning up the second bed. But this bed was much harder. Roots ran everywhere, thick ones merely an inch underground. There were a few flowers blossoming in the corners and when I went to scoop them up, some sort of white cotton like fiber was in my way.

“What the…?” I exclaimed.

Suddenly baby rabbits erupted from the garden, dashing away from my family, towards the fence. I was so shocked I fell back on my bottom, shrieking. My husband and children jumped up.

“Rabbits!” I said, pointing.

Everyone started to laugh.

It took us two weeks to clear that second bed. The kids and I tried. We circled the bed on our hands and knees, stabbing and scraping and snipping roots. My son got blisters on his hands and I hurt my back. On his day off, my husband went to the hardware store to buy a real shovel. He worked his green thumb magic and by dinner, the bed was transformed into a soft, naked rectangle of soil.

We planted tomatoes, cucumbers and beets, and watered them every day. One afternoon, my husband came to me in a rage.

“They’re eating our beets!” He said.

“Who?” I asked.

“The rabbits.” He said.

He took me out to the garden to show me an empty bed. “See here?” He waved his hand over the soil. “There’s nothing.”

“Maybe you could put a net over it?” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “Nets are expensive.”

“Maybe we could get a cat.”

He laughed. One of our children is allergic.

Later that week, he was on the phone with his parents. I watched him go outside, pick up the owl and place it near the garden. “My mom suggested I put the owl near the garden.” He said with a grin.

It’s been two weeks now, with our fake owl watching over the growing beets. They’ve been able to sprout without being eaten. It seems that real food is not as important to rabbits as fake flowers are to birds, or maybe rabbits are smarter than birds, or visa versa? Maybe there is no moral to the story, but now my family will get to eat the beets and all the work we put into that garden will go into our bellies instead. That is, of course, if the garden cooperates.