Sunday, September 7, 2008

Of Pet Stores and Dumb Bunnies


Erik and I made our regular weekend trip to the pet store yesterday. We have 6 leopard geckos, one house gecko, one crested gecko, three leopard gecko eggs, one ball python, one poodle, and one bichon. Geckos eat crickets or meal worms which involves a trip to the pet store pretty often. Meal worms live in a plastic container in your refrigerator for a month or so but crickets they don't last very long. Unfortunately, there has been a meal worm shortage all summer so this means more frequent trips to the store. Meal worm farmers in Florida had some crisis. How would that be for a job? Meal worm farmer?

The ball python eats mice or rats. Haggis came to our house because Erik volunteers at the Nature Center. Erik was so good at caring for their snakes they really felt he needed his own. When I said we couldn't afford one they were kind enough to locate a free one. Nice huh? Thing is they do not allow snakes in college dorms! Oh yes and Haggis is a picky eater. The mice we bought yesterday were not to his taste so we have to take them back. Another trip to the store!

Last night just before dinner Erik and I went out to our little garden to collect veggies. I was happily pulling up beets when a small brown furry thing ran over my feet. I have to say unless it is a small brown puppy or possibly a kitten I do not like them running over my feet especially in my garden. We have the garden fenced in because we sometimes have herds of deer in our yard. All around the bottom two feet we have double fencing to keep out small brown furry things. It was a tiny rabbit. Erik and I chased this rabbit round and round the garden trying to herd it out the open door. Every time it got close, it ran right by the door. "I kept yelling go through the door it's right here" to no avail. Dumb bunny kept running towards the opposite end. Erik and I thought "well maybe the dogs will hunt it out for us." So we brought out the dogs. Bichons are not rabbit hunters. Jimmy ran out of the garden back up on the deck where it was nice and quiet. Cooper chased the rabbit but not very effectively shall we say. Pack hunt just wasn't happening. Okay, so we went in the house for brooms buckets and reinforcements. Now we had a dog, Karl, Inga, Erik and I chasing this tiny rabbit round the garden. We were all afraid to pick him up. Finally, Erik scooped him up in a bucket and dropped him over the fence. That rabbit ran right down the fence right over the chicken wire and my feet back into the garden in spite of me telling him "No. No. Get out. Go the other way " He was determined to be in my garden. Maybe he left his new blue jacket with the shiny buttons behind...

4 comments:

Bachelor Paul said...
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Oma/Marion said...

No wonder you couldn't bring the kids with you to Granville. Who would have watched that small zoo you have? Why don't you try raising your own meal worms.
http://www.efinch.com/mealworms/mealworm.htm It seems quite easy and doesn't take up much space.

Anonymous said...

Clearly you should have brought the Python into the garden. I'll bet the little brown bunny would have been to his taste, and it would have saved you a trip to the pet store.

It is a good thing that it wasn't a squirrel you were annoying!

Cindy Koch said...

Erik said "Cool we should raise our own meal worms!"