Last summer I found two young snowshoe hares dead on the lawn one morning. They were curled up in the fetal position and showed no outward sign of trauma. They were the cutest little creatures and it was so sad to have to bury them. I had seen them hopping around the rosebushes just the day before. I couldn’t understand why they had died so suddenly. A fox would have carried them back to its den. If a cat or dog had attacked them, they would surely have wounds.
Hares have made nests in my wild rosebushes for years. They didn’t this year. In years past, young bunnies have often hopped out of the bushes as I’ve mowed the grass nearby. Adult hares still graze on the lawn in the open, usually dining on dandelions and plantains. In the winter they reach up to eat the green needles on the lower branches of balsam fir trees.
Recently I learned that most plants in the lily family of flowers are poisonous. Plants in this family all have bulbs, flowers with parts in 3s and parallel leaf veins. Many of these bulbs are often planted in the fall in North American gardens for spring blooming: narcissus, tulips, irises, hyacinths, crocuses and daffodils.
Although I”ve never planted any of these in my garden, a couple of years ago, a friend gave me a clump of Star of Bethlehem blooms to transplant. I put them right next to the rosebushes. At the time, I didn’t realize that their bulbs would be deadly if ingested by pet cats, dogs, rabbits or wild hares. Could these have caused the death of the young bunnies last summer? I’ll never know for sure, but I will be removing this beautiful plant and its numerous bulbs from my yard before next spring.
Nova Scotia is known for its abundance of berries. Like other wild berries, blackberries are full of vitamins and minerals that make them an excellent food choice. For maximum nutritional value, they are best eaten raw, fresh off the vine.
Mint Family – Labiatae
Like flowers, the more closely we look at people, the more wondrous they become. Although they might appear tired and worn from a distance, up close, their resilience and beauty is revealed. Sometimes it’s only when they begin to fall apart a little, that we can see what holds them together beneath the surface. Each one is more complex than we could ever have imagined. But such discoveries don’t come cheap.
Although there is a great diversity of plants for the hares to choose from, they repeatedly eat the same ‘weeds.’ During the winter months, I often see them sitting up on their back legs eating from the low branches of young balsam fir trees.
I used to mow around the Oxeye daisies too but now restrict their growth to mostly a large circular bed in one corner of the yard. Once they’re done blooming, I mow the area flat.
As a child I often picked bouquets of daisies but found it difficult to find any that weren’t a magnet for tiny insects. They are a favorite with bees and beetles.
