rabbit prophylactics

I planted about ten squash plants this morning, did some chores, did some desk work, and then ran into town to eat a burrito (successful), shop for a present (unsuccessful), and fill out a bunch of paperwork at the clinic (also successful).  The woman at the clinic made me hop onto the scale and took my blood pressure.  My blood pressure was fine.  I weigh one hundred and sixty-two pounds (also fine).  I peed into a plastic cup with my initials on it, filling the cup one quarter of the way up as instructed.  I screwed the lid on and returned the cup to the nurse.  My nurse then had me insert a plastic swab into my mouth and swab both sets of my gums.  I did it and handed her the swab.  Well, there it is, I said.  She stuck the swab into a swab receptacle and told me to return in 17 minutes for the results.  I returned home elated and found that one of the squash plants I'd set out in the morning had already been nibbled by the rabbit.  He obviously did not have a taste for delicata squash seedlings because the leaves he ate had been spit out, but I made some rabbit collars anyway.  Rabbits are not that bright.  I am confident that I can outsmart this one.

There are some problems with these rabbit collars.  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.  These collars will effectively reduce the amount of sunlight my seedlings receive each day.  Fortunately, the collars are only temporary, and so the problem of light will not be a problem for long.  The other problem is that any determined rabbit could easily put his head over the collar and nibble with little to no effort.  My hope is that the rabbit will think the collars are bizzarre and leave my plants alone.  It is also possible that the collars will obstruct the rabbit's view of the seedlings.  If rabbits find their food by sight, these collars could very well be effective prophylactic measures.  We shall see.

These rabbit prophylactics or "collars" are simply plastic pots with their bottoms cut off.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.  Because I hate plastic, because I don't throw shit away, and because I live in the era of plastic, I have dozens of these plastic pots in my garage, all of them neatly tucked into one another in a manner that befits a hyper-organized, curmudgeonly tight ass.  What once was a pot is now a rabbit deterrent.  You need only a pair of scissors to make them.  By affixing some translucent gauze or similar light emitting material to the top of these collars with a rubber band, the collars could effectively become insect deterrents as well.  I am considering doing that.  There is a horrible pest called the squash vine borer who lays her eggs on the stems of squash plants, and the larvae bore into the vines and eat them from the inside.  It's really gross.  For the home gardener, such measures are do-able and worth the effort.  For the farmer—fuck it.  It's not worth the trouble.  Just spray a bunch of gnarly insecticide everywhere and get drunk.