Monday, April 13, 2009

Birds & Bees and bunnies

Patrick says: I had an interesting discussion with the smallest Darbys today.

I have this crazy idea of how to mow and weed the grass this summer. Since the idea of a goat isn't as practical as I would like it to be, I'm taking a another page out of nature. I decided to get a couple of chickens and a rabbit to do it for me. I'm going to build a portable pen and move it every day or so. This would give the animals time to eat some grass and gnaw the weeds down. While they do that, they provide some natural fertilizer and control the bugs a bit. So the idea was to head down to the country store and pick up some easter chicks and a bunny. They eat all spring, summer, fall and when the grass stops growing - they become dinner.
The kids were very excited to get some new pets, but I calmly told them that these were not pets. These are working animals and that in the fall we are going to eat them. Eve got all teary and said,"you're joking right Dad?" "err...no, we really are going to eat them." It was rough. We don't have the animals yet and the drama has begun.
Well, long story short, the store didn't have any animals until Thursday. On the way home the kids were talking about what kind of rabbit they wanted, which means, do they want a boy rabbit or a girl rabbit. Isaac said we should get a girl rabbit so it can have babies. I said that wouldn't work because we were only getting one rabbit and you need a boy and a girl rabbit to have baby bunnies.
Isaac, the clever lad that he is, asks how can you tell if it's a girl bunny or a boy bunny. I ask him how he thinks you can tell a boy bunny from a girl. He gets this deep thinking look on his face.

He looks at me and replies, "girl bunnies have long hair."

3 comments:

Cheryl said...

That boy is truly a thinker! What could be more obvious that that answer, Dad??

Interesting plan you have. Keep me posted!

rsdarby said...

Awesome.

StarScout said...

Fantastic! How so very cute. You told me about the chics - where's the bunny? I'm still for the goat.