Shoot The Bunny

Last Friday when I came home and turned on the hot water, the tankless gas hot water heater made a horrible noise and died. No hot water for you. The computer brain error code said the combustion fan was on the fritz and would not spin.

I made an urgent call and was told it was either the ball bearings or bugs. See you Monday.

Monday morning the gas repair man came and scraped the mud daubers nest out that was blocking the fan blades and emptied all the dead wasps out from inside the combustion fan housing inside the tankless water heater that is inside my house. One hundred and five dollars thank you very much.

That was just one of many varmint troubles this week.

Something is living in the roof. There has been what I take to be the chewed up paper backing from insulation and sawdust of sorts falling from the ceiling on to the dining table for days. Mice, bats, carpenter bees or carpenter ants? Who knows. I bought a can of poison spray with a tiny straw for cracks and crevices. It has stopped for now.

I might get to making the shed door this weekend. I have a feeling I am just building a very nice bug house.

The time of Goldenrod has begun.

I amble through a Tall Flower Meadow coming into peak late summer bloom

With Ironweed well over my head.

There it is again, that damn bunny chewing and staring at me, unafraid and unmoving, so close that if I was hiking and not ambling, the bunny would likely get a good kick.

I see one bunny at a time, but there could certainly be more than one.

It's not much better at the Posh Estate or the Inn. I hate groundhogs with a passion. I have one at home now too. And I do believe that is a water moccasin living with the koi in the Almighty Falls. That makes the pond scum technician a wee bit nervous.

Deer Haven? I think not. I have to literally shout and charge the damn thing mornings and evenings before it will even consider moving on from my smorgasbord. Damn varmint.

For a good ten years their random snacking was no big deal. The last two years the deer seem to pick a dining space, park and try to lick the bowl clean. At least they have a limited list of preferred menu items. Still, the damage is much more noticeable.

Yes, there are days when I want to shoot the damn bunny.