THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507200169
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
The rabbit population in Fairfield has increased from one, when I moved into the neighborhood in 1975, to 3,789,241,543. All but one of those have lived in or traveled through my yard.
How, you ask, can that happen? Even with rabbits it takes two to tango.
Simple.
The one that lived here 20 years ago was of the female persuasion. Some good time Charlie (no relation to the animal of the same name that inhabits my house and is supposed to keep my yard free of four-footed intruders and doesn't), traveling through on his way from the wilds of Bayside to the even wilder wilds of Pungo, stopped off for a night of fun and frolic.
It was the start of a chain reaction that is destined to change the world.
One morning three weeks later, I noticed Rabbit One sitting around my back yard - fat, dumb, pregnant and hungry. She was indulging her gestational cravings by sampling each ripe fruit on my half dozen cherry tomato plants.
By 9 a.m. I had 63 ripe tomatoes, each with a set of teeth marks in it. I also had 177 green tomatoes without teeth marks.
By the end of the week, I had 240 globs of tomato puree dripping from six dying tomato vines in one corner of the yard and five infant rabbits following their female parental unit around the opposite corner.
``Isn't that adorable?'' I said to Bill.
``No, it's not,'' he replied.
``Grump,'' I said accusingly.
``Realistic,'' he answered knowingly.
Boy, was he right.
It was the start of a dynasty, which - if my figures are accurate - will wipe out all plant life as we know it by the year 2005. By 2015 it will have conquered the world, and by 2025 it will have sailed its own little rockets into space and planted its own yellow and purple flag on Jupiter.
I read up on rabbits in the encyclopedia the other day.
``They rarely survive more than a year in the wild because they have no way of protecting themselves from predators,'' my 1967 edition of ``World Book'' said.
Rubbish.
They have all kinds of ways. They run like Flo-Jo in pursuit of Olympic Gold, jump like Michael wearing a pair of turbo-charged Air Jordans and gnaw with the ferocity of a killer shark on the site of a major maritime disaster.
Their strongest defense of all is that they're disgustingly cute. Shirley Temple, c. 1933, pales by comparison.
Even sitting in the middle of the lawn with the remains of my favorite Asiatic lilies drooping from the corners of their mouths, they have the innocent look of Thumper cavorting through the forest with Bambi.
Several weeks ago, I was on the verge of flattening one with my hoe when he scooted into a hydrangea bush and sat there peeking out at me, wearing a wreath of little blue flowers on his adorable little head.
The fact that he was only about the size of my fist didn't hurt his chances for survival. Even knowing that by this time next year he will be a great-grandfather with 972 direct descendants, I still couldn't bring myself to do him bodily harm.
Which brings us to this nonsense about predators.
Forget it. Rabbits have none.
For every one that gets flattened by a car, 1,101 escape to gardens (usually mine) where they stuff themselves on the tender leaves of $75 specimen plants and reproduce with total abandon.
So what are we supposed to do about the problem?
Someone told me to plant marigolds. I did. They ate the marigolds.
Someone else told me to put gum balls around my plants.
I collected four bushels of the prickly little seed pods, dumped them in the garden and watched as Thumper, Bugs and the gang put them in piles, climbed up on top and got to a whole new layer of tomatoes.
Still someone else told me to put hair around all my pepper plants. I got some from a hair dresser friend and put it out on a Saturday. By Sunday, the hair had disappeared, so had the peppers.
A few days later, I found the hair. It was lining a nest full of baby rabbits and a mother who appeared to be giving lessons in how to gnaw neatly and run fast.
I did not find the peppers. by CNB