Too many places to hide

When I was coming of age, there was a magical device all "A Magazine".

It contained pictures, and stories and jokes. A new one showed up every month.

The best magazines, ones like Outdoor Life and Field and Stream had cracker-jack writers who could evoke a laugh, a smile or a tear. The very best writers earned an easy-to-find location, typically just inside the back cover.

Their names and their stories are fading. In fact, I did a search so I could quote and properly attribute what follows but to no avail. I am sketching the story out from memory. The original was far, far better.

***

The Last Rabbits have Too Many Places to Hide

The old dog lay before the hearth, twitching in his dreams. The hunter watched from his easy chair.

The dog dreamed of younger days when he chased and caught rabbits. Sometimes the hunter rolled them with low-brass #6 shot. The hunter invariably praised the dog so the dog knew that "he" had caught the rabbit. Other times the dog managed to run them down and catch them. It was easiest in the spring and summer when there were so many young, naive rabbits and the grass was burned dry and whispy.

The hunter himself was no longer young. An afternoon toasting his toes by the fire, a pipe of fine tobacco and a "wee dram" now sounded infinitely more appealing than tramping through the snowy woods in search of something for the stew pot.

Both hunters, man and dog savored and relived their hunts. The dog in his dreams. The man in his memory.

The man was saddened that dogs did not live as long as humans. This dog had been his finest companion but at 14 had very few days left in him. There were worrisome lumps and skin lesions and the man knew the dog's remaining days were numbered.

Meanwhile, the dog twitched in his dreams, running down the rabbits one-by-one. Deep in his dreams the dog's head would shake in disgust. it was late in the season and more of the rabbits were getting away.

The last rabbits always had too many places to hide.

***

Let me be very clear. This is not my story. I posted it because it is the lead-in for the rest of the post.

Too many rabbits

It is my own fault. I have too many rabbits because I have too many places for them to hide.

I have foundations that they have burrowed beneath.

I have old woodchuck holes and brush piles.

While Spontaneous Generation is discredited from the standpoint of pure Biological science, it is still one of the most functional way of addressing public health issues. If you have an epidemic of Hepatitis in your community, the most robust way to deal with it is to clear out the homeless encampments and put people who defecate in public into public housing with bars and locked doors.

It is the same deal with rabbits. They have immense reproductive capacity and no defenses against predators. If the predators can see/smell/hear them then the rabbit's survival comes down to how far the rabbit is from safety when first observed by the predator. If the rabbit ventures too far from its hole or brush-pile to get its dinner, it becomes dinner for a predator. Ergo, very, very few rabbits visiting the garden.

In a very short time, I will take a trip to the local store and buy a gallon of Cloudy Ammonia and a funnel. I will attach about six feet of stiff, poly hose to the bottom of the funnel. The hose gets pushed as far down the hole as I can manage and then a 1/4 cup of ammonia goes down the hatch.

Residents vacate that hole. Then I put a cork in the hole. Ethics demand that I make an effort to get the animals out of the hole before sealing it up.

Apartment complexes with too many holes might get a different treatment.

Meanwhile, I have places to go and work to do. So it is time to end this post.