RABBIT LOVER NOW THE RABBIT HUNTER

The Boston Globe

BEVERLY BECKHAM

I used to have a pet rabbit. I had more than one, actually, though not at the same time. The first was named - no surprise here - Thumper, and lived in a hutch my brand new husband built in our backyard. I used to walk Thumper up and down the street on a short leash meant for a poodle. He was our first official now-we-are-a-couple pet (unless you count Irving, the bird) and when I discovered him dead in his cage one afternoon, I screamed so loud my mother-in-law, who lived next door, came running.

A few months later, we got Ovaltine. We found him through the Want Ads. Little did I know then that you didn't have to drive 40 miles one way and fork over hard cash for a creature which, but for a few extra teeth, would be called a rodent. But I wasn't into gardening in those days. I was still watching Disney movies.

Fast-forward 35 years. I wanted rabbits? Now I have rabbits.

"Be careful what you wish for," my mother used to say. She must have known what I have just learned: that God has an odd sense of timing and humor. The grandbabies love the critters that populate what was once my garden. They giggle when they see them. And they see them everywhere. "Hop, hop, hop!" Lucy says, looking at the garden where the coreopsis used to be. "Hop, hop, hop," Adam says, looking at the headless lilies in the front yard, the stubble that was morning glories in the backyard, the gnawed-down Shasta daisies in the side yard.

Instead of flora, for which we have toiled, we have fauna: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter, and probably their parents, too, all of them fat and happy. They stare at me from the remains of my garden with blank, beady eyes and no regret at all, unlike my late dog, Molly, who after she eats something I prize - a scarf, a frilly pair of underwear - at least had the decency to feign remorse.

The rabbits show no remorse. They are indifferent to a person's dahlias and moonflowers. And I, once kind-hearted (think Snow White serenading the birds, or Mary Poppins dancing with the penguins) have been transformed into a foot-stomping, name-calling, gun-toting mixture of Rumpelstiltskin, Mr. McGregor, and Steve McQueen in "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

Well, I'm not exactly gun-toting quite yet. But I threw a rock at Peter the other day and hit him smack in his rear and he never moved. He continued wriggling his nose and munching on my heliotrope - what's left of my heliotrope. "Shoo!" I yelled because my children insist that I not teach their children any curse words. "Shoo! Scat! Scram!" Peter kept right on eating.

"Sprinkle hot pepper on your plants and the rabbits will leave them alone." That's what my gardening teacher said way back in the spring when I was still humming "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." Live and learn. I tried the hot pepper, lots of it (you have to reapply after watering), and all I can say is it seems to be their condiment of choice.

Next, I went online and learned that urine is the way to keep rabbits away. Fox urine. Coyote urine. Even human urine. Lovely. I drove to Country Gardens in Easton instead and talked to the experts and, bingo, five minutes later I had what was guaranteed to work: Organic Traditions All Natural Dried Blood. I didn't think about this being real dried blood, of course. Why would I? Is an eclipse always an eclipse? No. It's a car. It's a cigarette. It's a syrup you add to milk. It's the American way to call things what they aren't. Elbows aren't body parts. A comforter doesn't comfort. A one-day sale is never just a one-day sale. Who knew that dried blood is an exception to this rule?

I sprinkled the powdery red stuff on all my plants and all along the edges of the garden. And what do you know? I didn't smell flowers anymore. I smelled road kill. Road kill in a bag. And I’d bought it.

As for the rabbits? Munch. Crunch. Lunch. "Shoo! Scat! Scram!" I yell. "Hop! Hop! Hop!" Adam and Lucy shout.

"Wormwood. That will keep them away," a man on TV says. I look it up. It's just a plant no wood, no worms.

I ‘m going to give it a try.