Tales of Amy's Garden

Fiver: There's something very queer about the warren this evening?
Hazel: Is it dangerous?
Fiver: No but this time it feels different. Sort of…..like a storm is brewing.
Bigwig: I know. It is coming from that garden across the way where we had the old warren.
Hazel: How do you know that? I have been on vacation and not paying attention.
Fiver: Rabbits go on vacation?
Hazel: Sure we do. We can’t be busy little bunnies all the time. But what is happening in the old warren.
Bigwig: Well Strawberry and I were on patrol because some of the rabbits have been talking about moving back over there. They felt like there was too much to do over here. If they were in the old warren they could just lay around and munch on what the crazy lady in the cottage left lying around.
Fiver: But didn’t most of the animals leave that garden. I know the grouchy badger and gay blue jay left.
Bigwig: No they are around every once in a while. But they are causing a lot of the ruckus. The blue jay got all upset because the farmer took a picture of him and put it on the bulletin board. And everyone that commented on it and wrote stuff and said he was fat. That made the blue jay screech and poop all over the place. In fact he pooped right on the farmers head one time and he did not like that. And the grouchy badger started a lot of trouble. With a ghost.
Hazel: A ghost? What could he do to a ghost?
Bigwig: Well it seems that the ghost liked to visit the garden once in a while and observe all the goings on. He would even leave a letter now and then. He was an old English ghost so it was in that old timey talk that nobody understands now. Like the constitution.
Hazel: What?
Bigwig: I know right? Anyway the grouchy old badger is a curmudgeon or misanthrope or something like that and he is very grouchy and said something nasty about the ghosts off spring or something. The mole that heard it all told me about it but I couldn’t understand it. You know those moles. They never get anything right. Their ears are always full of dirt. So now the ghost is angry and put a curse on the garden and the lady who owns it and the farmer who lives there with her and tries to push off the back of the porch from behind when they don’t wear any clothes. I think he curdled her milk or something. It’s all very scary.
Fiver: Thank Eliearah we don’t live there anymore. I wouldn’t want to be in the middle of that? Pooping blue jays and angry ghosts.
Bigwig: Well some animals like that I suppose. In fact the black crow is always over there kawing at everyone. He keeps inviting everyone back to his nest but no one seems to want to go.
Fiver: Why not?
Bigwig: He says we just don’t understand. It’s a crow thing.
Hazel: Well that seems like a lot of excitement for a garden. I was glad I missed it all while I was on vacation. I just sat in the sun and peed on myself. It’s good to be old and tired. You don’t have to fight with everyone.
Fiver: That’s true Hazel. I like our little garden. Everyone seems to get along……wait a minute….did you just pee yourself again?
(Watership Down, 1972)