get the traps out. I have heard one guy who took a hose from his car exhaust pipe and gassed them in their holes... I think that was for voles. My old cat loved to hunt rabbits. I think I have a picture of him with a jack rabbit as big as him. It was a barbaric picture. Alas, he has gone to the happy hunting grounds in the sky last month. The young Kido has not yet caught on. It is still lizards that he brings in and put in my purse.

The more I get down and look at my plants, the more I notice how many have at least some damage. It wouldn't be a problem for the older plants, but I have so many first-year seedlings and it's making it hard for them to really get going. They are in so many different places, making it hard for me to fence anything as a group, so I keep making more individual cages.

I wonder if they are safe to eat? Rabbit season starts October 15.

Back when I was growing up my Dad sometimes brought home rabbits, he cleaned them and my mom cooked them like fried chicken. Sometimes it was quail. Other times, catfish or occasionally frog legs. A couple times we had deer meat......

When pest stuff like this happened around our house, my dad always "took care of it" but then there weren't opposing political views hanging over it. I don't think people think like this anymore but back then it was all about common sense, no one really gave it more thought than that but I do know no one would put up with rabbits in a garden back then.

Lets hope that the Social Justice warriors don't become gardeners or I might be pressing their "trigger Points".

I should add that the reason I said that is because I deal with cats roaming the neighborhood, lots of them and what I described above always runs through my mind and I know how my dad would have dealt with it. As it is, I just complain and put up with it because I fear consequences of any action or I just don't want to pay money (and a lot of time) for a solution which is what I found out would be the case when I looked into it.

The Missouri Wildlife Code allows you to "take care of" most wildlife if it is damaging your property:

Subject to federal regulations governing the protection of property from migratory birds (including raptors), any wildlife except white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, turkeys, black bears, mountain lions, and any endangered species which beyond reasonable doubt is damaging property may be captured or killed by the owner of the property being damaged, or by his/her representative, at any time and without permit, but only by shooting or trapping except by written authorization of the director or, for avian control, of his/her designee. Wildlife may be so controlled only on the owner’s property to prevent further damage.

As native wildlife I'm okay with the idea of rabbits foraging in my yard. Unfortunately the natural predators that would have kept their numbers down are missing. I saw a coyote in the neighborhood late one night, but I think they rarely get this far into the city. It's probably too congested (trees, buildings) for hawks.

One of my friends, from a farm in Wisconsin, tells a story about his dad taking care of a shoebox of kittens by placing it behind a big tractor wheel and backing over it. I guess you can't be too sentimental when you've got a lot of property to manage.

The Coyotes get pretty far into Austin but there are many steep valleys and green belts that act as natural corridors and there are many deer and small dogs and cats.