Mad as a hornet

My little garden has been doing so well this year, since I actually plugged in the sprinkler and left the hose draped across the lawn all day, thus ensuring that things got watered on a regular basis. (Somehow unwinding and putting away the hose is an insurmountable obstacle, mentally.) I was so delighted to be given several more plants last week, including dill, parsley, rosemary, and several basil, not to mention a few tomatoes. I planted them with sweat and toil, and looked forward to the prospect of a rich harvest. And every day thereafter, the rabbits came and systematically munched their way through it.

Our garden, let it be noted, was already enclosed with a chain link fence. Michael wrapped chicken wire along the lower portion a few years ago, and secured it tightly to the fence with tie straps last year, because rabbits still wriggled through. Now we think they must have begun to burrow under the chain link fencing, enticed by the fragrance of the herbs. It's very disappointing, to say the least.

I went out there the other day with a shovel to pound clay along the fence line and build up an earthen dike sufficient to deter the little beasts. Red Georgia clay we have in profusion, and I was excavating a deep hole nearby and pounding it around the fence with great ferocity when I noticed a flurry of yellow jackets coalescing with astonishing rapidity. Four of them got to me as I beat a hasty retreat. The internet informed me that I had up to 20 hours to die of anaphylactic shock, so when that didn't happen, I concluded happily that I am not allergic to hornets.

Meanwhile the rabbits continue to devour my hard-earned produce, and I seethe with Wile E. Coyote-like rage. Each morning when I survey the desolation, I can practically feel my eyeballs swirl with red indignation as I contemplate lining the garden with mousetraps, poison, venus fly-traps, and TNT. First we have to vanquish the hornets. Why can't the hornets sting the rabbits?