When Dr. NanBob and I bought our house, we tried to save a few bucks by having the builder seed the backyard rather than sod it. Little did we know that Georgia would be plagued by a subsequent drought, and that the drought would last more than 15 months. Last month, our backyard looked really ugly with scant amounts of grass, crab grass, weeds and a lot of clay. The only living thing that found this yard appealing was a giant rabbit that came each evening to eat the crab grass. This thing was HUGE. If it would have had antlers, then it would score at least a 180 on the Pope and Young deer scale.
Anyway, the yard was looking pretty bad, so I decided to mow it. I thought that making the grass, crab grass and weeds the same short, flat height would improve the looks of the yard. I guess I skipped school the day kids were taught to avoid mowing clay in a drought. It was like a clay bomb went off. You know those pictures of the dust bowl you see in history books? It was much worse than that. The neighborhood looked like an enormous orange duster when I got through. There was an orange cloud of dust that followed me around. It covered our house and cars and those of our neighbors. We were not cherished members of the community when I was finished. It was then that Dr. NanBob and I decided to bite the bullet, bust the bank account, and have our backyard sodded.
As I said, we have a drought going on here where I live. Well, if you put in new landscaping in my county, then, and only then, you can water it a little bit every other day for 10 weeks, but you must first pass a landscape watering test. Talk about test anxiety….Faen. The thought of having to tell Dr. NanBob we couldn’t have sod because I flunked the sod watering test was pretty scary. The exam is preceded by a typical education component in which examinees (i.e., testes) watch a PowerPoint presentation filled with landscape watering facts. For all my former students who think statistics class is boring, well let me tell you, some things are worse; things like sod watering school. The training component is followed by a multiple choice test. I was bummed because I didn’t ace the test….I missed one out of twenty questions. You may think this is simply the neurotic rant of an overachiever here. No, it’s not. I had the damn PowerPoint slides printed out right there in front of me while I was taking the test….Only a moron would not be able to get 100%. Oh well, I guess I was dozing. The heat does funny things to your sleep cycle. In any event, I passed the test, and we got a permit to water our sod. I won, I won! I wanted to frame my sod watering school completion certificate and hang up it in the den. Dr. NanBob was not impressed with my accomplishment nor my decorating idea.
The sod installer was a good ole’ boy from Georgia that I knew, and when he came over, we did what all of us good ole’ boys do here. We talked about the heat, passing out from the heat, the drought, deer and snakes….especially snakes. (Note to self: If you pass out in your yard in the heat of the day, snakes will come and attack you.) During the animal conversation, I mentioned the giant rabbit that visited our yard during the evenings. I told the installer that if the rabbit eats our new sod then he would soon become a "Revereware Rabbit". The installer told me that “nawww, rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” Well, a few days went by, and I did not see the rabbit. I was out in the yard a lot trying to put every drop of water I could on that lawn, but I never saw the rabbit. (There may have even been some occasional “ninja watering” when the lawn did not look so good, but I have no memory for such events Sheriff, nor do I remember seeing the rabbit.) The rabbit was nowhere to be found. Wheew! The lawn was safe, at least from the giant rabbit.
Well after about a week, I started noticing all this animal crap over the new lawn. It looked kind of familiar, but I wanted to identify it on the internet to confirm my suspicion. (There are literally all kinds of crap on the internet.) Damn if it wasn’t rabbit crap. Moreover, there was a lot of it too. Remember how I said this was a giant rabbit? Need I say more? There was so much of it that both Dr. NanBob and I felt compelled to remove it with shovels before it killed off some of the new lawn. As it turns out, this mutant rabbit was eating tons of stuff at our neighbors’ houses, and then coming over to our place to relieve itself. I thought back to what the installer said… “rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” He was right. They don’t like to eat it. But they do find it useful nonetheless. This rabbit lives by the old Italian adage “Don’t shit where you eat.” It must be a giant, mutant, Italian rabbit. I will buy some really big Revereware, some pasta and a nice bottle of Italian wine later today. You defiled the wrong lawn signore big bunny.
Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob
P.S. Yes, having a rabbit crap on your large investment is pretty frightening, but so is our horror presentation sensation “Homie Horror: The Beginning.” If you are on Facebook, then you can watch it here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15632178343
Please join our Facebook group too because it helps us to promote the “movie”. If you are not on Facebook, then you can still watch it here:
http://www.roberjam.acceleron.net/Behindthescenes.htm
Don’t watch it alone or with any giant rabbits!!! Especially if either you or the rabbit have just eaten.
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