Vigilance

Posted: Rabbits are not welcome in our yard.

You have received fair warning.

Did you know that rabbits are not rodents? I always thought they were, but apparently, they are lagomorphs.   The distinguishing difference is that lagomorphs are voracious herbivores, while rodents tend to be omnivores. Try to fit the word lagomorph into your conversations for the rest of the day. For example: "That Kyle guy's a bit of a lagomorph, don't you think?" 

Cute, huh?

We have a bit of a rabbit problem. They eat everything. They eat our shrubs. They snip the flowers off our bulbs. They nibble our rose bushes. They even strip the bark off our fruit trees. I have tried repelling or trapping them in the past without success. It was time to escalate the battle.

Yesterday, I purchased a Daisy Powerline 880s pellet gun. It looks really intimidating, and even comes with what I will henceforth refer to as a sniper scope. In truth, it's not terribly powerful, but it is enough to get the job done. I have not yet dialed in the sight, because I need an opportunity to do a little target shooting in order to do that.

However, I discovered this morning that the sniper scope is accurate enough to hit my target at 15 feet. Specifically, I hit a rabbit from 15 feet away out my guest room window.  It was a pretty clean neck shot, which would be perfect if I were planning to save the meat. I am not ready to skin a rabbit yet, so I did not keep the meat. Luckily for his friend, it's not yet accurate enough to hit my target from 35 feet. Soon.

In a lot of old westerns and fantasy novels, people name their weapons. Davy Crockett had Ol Betsy. The Bagginses had Sting. Anybody have a good name for my rabbit-sniping pellet gun? I was leaning toward Widowmaker.