The same rabbit showed up in the yard last night as I lit the grill for dinner. Can you imagine the impudence? I was lighting a GRILL.
I found a not-really-ripe, but-sort-of-smooshy-and-gross tomato with awfully suspicious toothmarks in it, and threw that at the rabbit with all my innate pitching skill. It moved at the last minute, so I missed it, which is probably good, because I would have had a hard time explaining the unconscious rabbit to you, the reading public, and to Steve.
Then I chased the rabbit around for awhile, running clumsily in my ridiculous Target faux Chinois flip-flops that have about five-inch platforms and that have lost any elasticity in the top straps, so every step takes me just millimeters from certain doom when my foot plunges to one side, and I either go down hard and crack a rib, or stay up and break an ankle.
I love those great choices. Particularly when I’m running like an idiot after a bunny. I used to hold a high school record in the 500 meters…you’d think I’d know better, at 33, than to run in unstable flip flops. This gardening thing puts me over the edge.
Then the bunny went and hid in my squash plants. I stopped running like an idiot, but stood there yelling at the terrified bunny. “Get out of there!” I yelled, quite glad that none of my neighbors were in their respective yards. “That is totally unacceptable! Get out of the squash plant!” I was also quite glad that Steve had gone to the store, although now he’s going to find out about this through the blog instead.
But this is not another post about the rabbit. This is another post about the basil.
The commenters who weighed in on my scale problem had some great ideas. Why try just one? I thought I’d try all of them. I started with the soap-and-water solution, mostly because I had the required ingredients on hand.
I have one of those Pampered Chef soap dispensers that allow you to dilute your soap with water and send it out the top in a fluffy tube of bubbles, so even though the commenters told me to put together some sort of spray bottle operation, I just took that bad boy out to the basil plant. Best case scenario, I’d have a great story to tell at the next Pampered Chef party to which I’m invited.
I took aim and fired. And fired. And fired. I layered suds on the plant until it seemed excessive, then left it there for a few minutes.
This was about the point at which I realized that we have some kind of antibacterial, extraordinary-grease-cutting, fancy dish detergent, and perhaps this wasn’t what people were talking about when they referred to solutions that involved Joy.
No matter. I rinsed everything, leaving a lovely bubbly residue in the dirt at the surface of the container. Time to wait and see if a little plant-washing solved the problem.
on Aug 22nd, 2006 at 9:22 am
Your rabbit solution is right in front of you..The grill. Mr. Bunny needs to become part of the food chain.
I’m dying with laughter over the running in flip flops after the rabbit.
The uber-dish soap is best for dealing with insects since the aim is to dissolve the waxy coating on their exoskeletons that hold in their moisture.
on Aug 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 am
A theme blog, packed with content….nice.
btw, see how cuteness index affects judgement?
1. Rabbit eats tomato, insects eat out plant.
2. Rabbit gets a photo and two posts dedicated to it, insect gets the evolved bugspray. =))
on Aug 22nd, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Steven, I thought about trying to catch and grill it. But the dang thing is so cute…
Mukundan, trust me…the scale’s already had two posts, technically, and there’s more to come…I’m an equal-opportunity pest blog. Sort of.
Thanks for stopping by, y’all!
on Aug 23rd, 2006 at 12:14 am
Girl, I hear you about critters in the garden eating up all your plants! Amen.
on Aug 23rd, 2006 at 2:11 am
Amusing… and great photos.
Nicely put together blog… Good luck with your gardening (and the rabbit)!
on Aug 23rd, 2006 at 6:31 am
Loretta, at least there’s been less eating than I expected…I know people who have barely gotten a single tomato, thanks to various pests.
Fencer, thanks for stopping by!
on Aug 23rd, 2006 at 2:02 pm
“That is totally unacceptable!” she says. To the rabbit.
Boy-oh-boy. A mouth like a sailor. Shiver me timbers, wabbit. I bet his long floppy ears are-a-burnin’.
on Aug 23rd, 2006 at 9:23 pm
I said it like a teacher! That wascally wabbit was very, very scared.
on Aug 31st, 2006 at 5:40 am
[...] Soaped up [...]
on Oct 17th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
[...] I’m really not any better in dressy heels, after all, than I am when I run around the yard after rabbits in my platform flip-flops. [...]
on Apr 7th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
[...] Rabbit. First one of the season. [...]
on Jul 27th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
LOL–what do you do about the pesky white flies or have you yet to encounter thenm??
on Jul 27th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Hey, it’s been a year…let’s wake up!! I have 42 gorgeous tomatoes sitting on my counter top right now, who wants some?
on Jul 19th, 2010 at 6:19 am
[...] in the day, I wore flip-flops to garden, even at the risk of breaking an ankle in situations of rabbits and chasing and throwing of [...]