Baboon Pirates

Scribbles and Scrawls from an unrepentant swashbuckling primate.

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Location: Texas, United States

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Cute & Fuzzy Bunnies

A.K.A. Coyote Appetizers

Over at Army Of Mom, there's a tale of some cute widdle bunny wabbits living in the big city. I kinda like the little flopeared rascals. They don't make hardly any noise when they're going at it like, well, rabbits (it's those cotton balls, ya know...) and they're fun to watch hop around and wiggle their bunny noses.

I was living on the outskirts of Carrollton over by the Addison Airport not too long ago, and out back of the apartment complex we had a huge power line right-of-way stretching into infinity in either direction. The right-of-way acted as a conduit for all sorts of wildlife to infiltrate into the city, impeded only by the occasional road.

Many nights I'd go outside, sit on the bed of the truck to watch the sunset, and see all the rabbits creep out onto the grassy plain to have their evening feed. Most nights, there's be at least a dozen, and every so often you'd have a raccoon or opossum skulking around at the edge of the woods. Someone in the apartment complex used to dump a 5 lb. bag of dog food outside the trash dumpsters every few days, and many times you could drive by and see 8 or 10 raccoons stuffing their faces.

I remember my sister visiting one night, and we were met at the front door of my apartment by a huge 'possum that was having some sort of unnatural relationship with the doormat on the porch. I finally had to go get the jack handle out of the truck to prod him on his way. He eventually waddled off, looking like an enormous scabby rat.

Once, I got to dogsit Rockhauler's beagle for a week. We'd go have evening walks up and down the right-of-way, and she could smell all the fascinating scents. She had one of those fishing reel/leash thingies that gave her a certain amount of running room, and let me take a more sedate pace. I was paying closer attention to the hottie walking her Yorkie than to what Sweetpea was up to, when a rabbit must have broken cover in the tall grass.

Next thing I know, there's this deafening "BA-ROOOOOOOOOO!!!!" followed by me getting jerked almost off my feet by a beagle shifting from sublight speed into warp drive. I dumped the drag on the leash and gave her all the slack I could, but that rabbit was already over the Oklahoma state line by that time. Beagles got to learn to go into stealth mode and be vewy vewy quiet when hunting wabbits!!

We also had the occasional coyote trotting up and down the right-of-way. Most times, they ate the rabbits. You could tell because every so often you'd hear the death squeal of the bunny. It's an eerie sound, kind of like a child screaming. A coyote also tried to make off with a lady's miniature poodle one night, but she kicked it off her dog before it could kill it.

Nope, I'm never surprised by the variety of wildlife within the city. They've all been here for millions of years, and they'll find a way to keep on existing, in spite of what the humans do.