Summer in The Hamptons

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Dang. It looked like the perfect spring, but I already have casualties. The past few days’ wind broke off not one, but two, my only two, seedlings of cucumber. Kathleen has lost two variegated sage in the front herb garden.

But those aren’t the unkindest cuts. The other day, I saw a horrible sight at the front of The Hamptons—The Hamptons being our nickname for the garden shed. Having a nickname for a garden shed creates such unusual sentences as, “The loppers are in The Hamptons,” or “When you’ve finished cleaning up the dog poop, put the bucket in The Hamptons.” There’s actually a proud sign hanging over the door: “The Hamptons.” Anyway, the horrible sight was a cute little bunny on the shed’s stoop. And not even one of those nasty jackrabbits, but one of those little dwarf bunnies. Just sitting there, content as a fat baby in a warm bath, fully cognizant of the fact that a new garden was growing a hop, skip and a jump across the yard. He’d moved in beneath The Hamptons.

Hum.

I’ve fought voles, quail and earwigs. I’ve battled broken irrigation, over-hot manure and immortal weeds. I’ve attacked everything that’s ever come up, but what are my defenses against a cute little Easter bunny?

You can’t poison them (at least various universities’ cooperative extensions say not to). You can kill-trap them, but I have other pets that use the yard. You can live-trap them, but it’s illegal to release them (because they’d just go to somebody else’s garden). I’ve got a Glock, but that’s kind of like shooting an elephant with a thermonuclear bomb. I found my wristrocket, but it’s been so long since I used it, the rubber was rotten. And my dog, as they say, don’t hunt.

I guess my only recourse is to buy some kind of pellet gun or maybe one of those little one-handed crossbows.

I think there’s going to be at least one more casualty this spring. And I’ll never feel the same about The Hamptons.