Morning Missions

Mornings of late have been glorious - fresh with a hint of the heat to come. Coffee and breakfast outside with a gentle wind and the pleasing warmth of the morning sun is what late summer is all about.

We have found, however, that we have to perform a couple of rituals as soon as we get up. (Lately that's more like 8 than 6 a.m.) Coffee and breakfast have to wait. Most native animals and birds are are very welcome in our our garden. Since our pond has been depleted of fish, herons and shags have not been our favourite visitors. Rabbits are not native so they have absolutely no claim on our garden.

We have done our best to keep the rabbits out. They are more than welcome to roam free in the outback but the cultivated garden is not for them. Unfortunately the plants they want to eat are not found in the outback!

So, lately, every morning as we take in the day through the bedroom window, contemplating the first coffee, we do a quick sweep for rabbits. And it seems, every morning a few have broken into our high security sanctuary. Shoes on, out through the back door so we can sneek up on them, we give chase. The whole aim is to find out where they are getting in and carry out repairs to the fence. Sometimes we are lucky, sometimes they just disappear.

The dog will also give chase and she can still run fast even though she's knocking on 13. She is still as dumb as ever, though, and she will take off to the left as the rabbits turn right and double back across the garden. Yesterday one ran right past Ruprecht as the dog charged into the bushes in quite the opposite direction.

Added to this unwelcome early (well earlyish) morning exercise we now have to give chase to a rogue shag that can't accept that there are no more fish in the pond. It will circle over and if we hurry down to Maru it will perch in a tree or on the roof and play a waiting game. We have to yell and clap our hands and look very menacing (hard in your PJs and Dr Who slippers) until it flies away. Sometimes it flies away. Sometimes it comes in for a repeat performance as we walk away. Maybe we should not bother but I live in hope we have baby fish and anyway, it can leave the frogs alone. (Nothing good can come from a shag at Maru.)

But back to the rabbits......

So morning duties done, coffee and breakfast consumed, we then have to patch up any breaches to our rabbit resistant fence.

I managed to watch a family of rabbits disappear into the neighbours' garden through a section of the fence. So there I was, on hands and knees crawling along the fence line, over tree roots and branches. There are very few places where it is an easy walk along the fence, so fixing holes becomes a bit of an acrobatic exercise in itself. Who needs a gym workout.

We can't complain about the 2 or 3 rabbits we see in our garden, though. It's quite a problem here at the moment. When we first moved here it was party time for rabbits in this garden. The part that is now the cottage garden was like downtown Sydney for the rabbits. Rabbit warren central. I can't complain about the shag either. It is very cute.

Fact is, I can't complain. I'm loving it here.