The @#%&* hares are attacking and snacking the young apple trees we've planted at the arboretum at Otautau, stripping the new leaves from the tips of the branches and chewing on the bark on the trunks.
I'm going to make chicken-wire tubes tomorrow and surround each tree with a steely ring of confidence.
8 comments:
The going must have gotten tough towards the end of winter as they did the same in Moeraki! The weak hopped onto the first branch and ringbarked, the strong chewed through the now-not-so-rabbit-proof chicken wire fence surrounding the orchard, and the mighty took to tantalized posts!
Good grief! Fence posts!
Talking to an ex-Brit farming friend last night who said, on the topic of jugged hare, that many people who suffered appendicitis in his part of the world, did so after ingesting lead shot from the wild game they so enjoyed. Apparently that's where it lodges!
Always wondered what that little cul-de-sac was for!
I'm back out to the arboretum this morning with a bundle of stakes (cut last year from my coppiced hedge) to shore up the netting.
One trick for possums is putting piles of cut gorse around fruit trees, perhaps it would work for rabbits too.
Anon! That's a great idea.
(I should have said, "Of gorse!")
I'll try it and let you know.
I thought it was briar bushes that brer rabbit hated so much?
Even better Shane and full marks for literary references!
The Tar baby is one of my all-time favourites. Uncle Remus knew all about reverse psychology, for sure!
...though, on reflection, 'briar' are roses. Are we thinking 'bramble'? That's what I'd always imagined Brer Rabbit being hurled into - a blackberry patch. Maybe my childish mind had it wrong ...hmmmm...
...hmmm... yes, dunno. "Don't throw me in Bob's apple trees" doesn't sound the same, though.
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