The Year of the Rabbit

Thursday, February 3, 2011, marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit, the Chinese New Year. In Garden Grove and Westminister, Orange County, thousands will celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese festival which acknowledges the start of the new cycle. In preparation for the celebration, families spruce up and clean their homes to get rid of the past year's bad karma, pay off debts and resolve differences with family members. Everywhere, the feeling of " ...out with the old, in with the new..." is evident.

Here, in Borrego, every year is the Year of the Rabbit - as many of you have noticed! Some years are worse than others...good for coyotes- bad for gardeners. All of us talk about the rabbits as if they were pests. In retrospect, however, they are just an ongoing part of the desert scene. When there has been adequate rainfall, plant life explodes and so do the rabbits- both cottontails and hares. During dry years, however, food becomes more scarce and the little darlings start to eat whatever they can find - including YOUR garden plants!

They ARE tenacious little animals. One day, I watched a desert hare nip each spine off a cactus pad before he daintily consumed the whole thing! When you see a horse shoe shaped bite or a diagonally cut stem, you can assume rabbits have been dining on your garden fare. You can avoid this by caging plants with chicken wire...especially when they are young and tender. Older , better established plants seem to be less desirable, especially native varieties.

I think coyotes like the idea of a perpetual year of the rabbit. They are just like a desert police force, on patrol every night, enforcing the law of nature. When you next hear their wavering siren call, rejoice that they are on the job keeping rabbits out of your hare!