Mary chased a small rabbit out of her garden a few days ago, whereupon we up-armored a few vulnerable parts of the fence. The culprit turns out to be insufferably cute:
You cannot be annoyed with something like this:
Oh, yes, you can. Rabbits are basically eating machines:
They’re welcome to all the greenery in the yard, just nothing in the garden:
It’s known as a 2×2 Bunny, because it can fit through that size opening in a chain link fence while traveling at a dead run.
This one has yet to learn about being wary around the Big People:
The alert reader will have noted the crappy quality of the last three pictures, at least in comparison with the first two. It’s the difference between digital zoom on my Pixel 3a phone applied to a zoomed-all-the-way image and optical zoom on a “real” camera (admittedly, an old Sony DSC-H5). On the other paw, I had the phone in my pocket when Mary spotted the bunny on the driveway, which counts for everything in similar situations.
JPG compression doesn’t handle hair particularly well, so the low-res bunny wears a rather artistic brush-stroke coat; it’s OK if you like that sort of thing.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
That cute little bunny has killed off a quarter of my pea plants just as they were starting to bloom. It eats the 4″ of stem near its nose and leaves the rest of the plant hanging from the trellis to die. Couldn’t it at least eat the entire plant? Woodchucks know the top is best part of a pea plant.
Our cottontails have disappeared, either moving to the neighbor’s garden or falling to the predators.
We still have plenty of jackrabbits, including one who moves rather slowly. He’s avoided being a meal for the great horned owls–jackrabbit braaaaaaaainnnnns seem to be a popular snack for them.Seems the GHOs don’t hunt during the day.
On the gripping hand, ground squirrels haven’t been by our garden for a couple of years. The neighborhood feral cats found that a nice dinner destination.
A Red Squirrel recently produced three pups, all of which have been chasing each other around the yard. They’re at least as cute as the bunny, but we’re rooting for the local hawks.
Hmm…
“Kids are driving me nuts”
They’re both squirrels, but neither wants to admit it …