You Could Have Fooled Me - Julie Farrar

You could have fooled me.

I know that I put them right here, underneath this viburnum bush. And they were there under the dogwood tree, too. I had some buried in the English ivy, and over here along the stone path. In fact, I still have the package they came in, so I know it’s not my imagination. A neighbor noticed them this weekend and mentioned them, but when I went to look myself they were nowhere to be seen.

What thief had come in the night? How could they mock my hard labor like this? I get down on my knees and start searching in the chilly black mulch, moving handfuls of it aside to see if they are just hiding, waiting for the right time. No, nothing. But what’s that over there? Aaaaargh! My finger runs over just the smallest nub of a crocus stem. It sits just millimeters above the spring-damp earth, it’s white and violet-tinged cup of a flower decapitated and stolen away. The emerald green stem has been sliced cleanly at the dirt line.

Looking closer, I see other stem remnants barely peeking up from their winter homes beneath the soil, never to rise to the early spring sun again. Drat those rascally rabbits! They crouch in the bushes every fall and watch me fastidiously place dozens and dozens of crocus and snowdrop bulbs in the ground, carefully measuring the depth of the hole against the length of the shovel head. They watch me choose the colors carefully, mixing just the right amount of purple, white, and glorious yellow for drama above the last snow of the season that will inevitably hit after they are schedule to explode in waves of color.

Those rabbits, though, crouch under the nearby bushes and with their little rabbit minds they memorize the placement of every bulb so they will be ready to strike quickly when the moment arrives. And they do. One morning I’m in the yard with my dogs growing excited by the coming spring because I see the smallest hint of a purple bud sticking it’s head out of the ground, testing the air. The next morning the garden is as barren as Mars.

The rabbits know where their feast hides and they know the dogs do not go into the yard before 6:00 a.m. If I woke in the last dark of an early spring dawn and looked out my window I’m sure I’d see a full-blown bunny convention decimating my early spring bulbs. And if I listened carefully enough I’m sure I’d hear them laughing at me. But this year the joke’s on them. For an entire week I got to enjoy one lone purple crocus with yellow and white pinstripes live out its natural life cycle completely unmolested amid the overgrown ivy under the dogwood just east of the front stoop. This was the year I was going to yank out that tangle of overgrowth, but now I think I’ll decorate it instead with more bulbs.