After Graceland, I boomeranged back into Ma and Pa’s house while commuting back and forth to Ames while working on my MBA. My parents have spent years creating a backyard oasis complete with trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetable gardens. And while we all enjoy the fruits of their labors, so do the neighborhood cottontail rabbits. In an effort to combat the problem, we resorted to dispatching our unwanted and destructive backyard guests with the help of an air rifle. To paint a picture of the scale of the problem, when the rabbits were at their peak, we once shot more than 15 cottontails within a three or four day span.
My girlfriend at the time did not think too highly of our floral-protection system and made her dislike known one day by mailing me a postcard that featured the portrait of a rabbit’s face. On the back, her milk-carton prose read something like this… Missing. Peter Cottontail. Last seen at the Atkinson residence, in the garden, wearing grey fur. If you have any information on Peter’s whereabouts, please call 888-FINDPETER.
After a chuckle, I mailed the postcard back to her.
Of course, first I added the information she was looking for in the form of a well-placed pellet right between the photographed bunny’s eyes.
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I am somewhat troubled by this tale of carnage, reading it on Easter morning. For the most part I try to look around the exploits of the hunting Atkinsons, given their other many socially redeeming qualities, oh my…
Don’t dismay, the bunny in this tale had his last supper, and three days later, he, or another rabbit that looked just like him, was back at the rose (bush) again!