In hopes of keeping the backyard rabbits from eating our budding tomatoes and other summertime plants, Yuriko has been leaving lettuce and carrots out for them. I’m not sure that will work. For one thing, they don’t seem interested. Bugs Bunny might eat carrots, but actual rabbits not so much.

Was Bugs ever seen eating anything else? I’m hardly the only person to ask that important question, and the answer is yes. I remember some of those listed cartoons, especially “Baseball Bugs” and “Hare We Go,” from which I might have learned the term mess, as in a place to eat. As for why carrots were the nosh of choice for Bugs, that was reportedly inspired by Clark Gable eating a raw carrot in It Happened One Night, a detail I’d forgotten.

A family of rabbits now occupy the backyard, including a large adult and two or maybe three juveniles, who are often spotted eating grass. They might live under the deck.

It’s hard to get close enough to them to capture an image. Even at a young age, rabbits are wary critters and fleet of foot. I figure they’ve taken to the yard this year, much more than previously, because there is no dog on patrol any more, and somehow they know it.