Some Bunny

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 13, 2020

Bunny fence installed in April.

Bunny fence in July with happy native plants – and a few garden varieties to boot!

If you read this blog then you have read several times of my bemoaning the presence of rabbits at the MMA – particularly the Mitchell House. As a science-based organization and myself a lover of wildlife, I have no problems with them. As a gardener, I do. And, I have written numerous times about the bunny population here on Vestal Street.


Well, it seems that maybe due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic and fewer people around, that the bunnies have been having something of a baby boom. I have SEVEN baby rabbits of various sizes!  SEVEN!  And they have an even greater audacity than their predecessors – all just lying about in the garden in front of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO) as if they own the lawn and garden. They have no fear – though I do scare them as much as possible to teach them to have some fear.


This spring, once the Town allowed and I had my special permission permit, I installed a bunny fence to keep them out of the main wildflower garden in front of the MMO. It looks a bit different from the photograph here as it has actually kept them out – except for one – and now everything is flourishing! Joe Pye Weed, Prickly Pear Cactus, Blazing Star, Mallow, Mountain Mint, Pearly Everlasting, Butterfly Weed, and more! The one rascal who got in – a tiny baby – was ultimately chased out with the help of a neighbor – both of us wearing our masks and social distancing. The bunny had managed to squeak past the deer fencing I had to use when I ran out of chicken wire for the bottom of the fence. Yes, its green wire deer fencing at about two or so feet and then a one-foot addition of chicken wire at the base to keep out the baby bunnies. I had shown up when the neighbors texted me to tell me they saw “someone” in there. Luckily, I arrived with more chicken wire for the 12-inch deer fenced gap that the baby bunny had gone through. A friend unearthed the much-needed chicken wire in his shed. Seriously – the baby bunny GNAWED through the deer fencing – and then did it in front of me to escape my wrath!


But in any case, it seems to have done the trick – with a thank you to a MMA board member and fellow gardener who told me I had to or I wouldn’t win and I was being too nice.  And to the neighbors and their loveable dog who spied the invader.


Now, I have to figure out a historically-accurate bunny fence that’s low for the Mitchell House garden – which has been completely wasted by the bunnies! So much for 500 heirloom Heavenly Blue Morning Glory seeds – gone! I guess I’m going to have to weave a twig fence!


JNLF

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Putting Things By

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF

At Long Last!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 9, 2025
After several yes’s and then several no’s, not going to have time, we have indeed received the final layer of asphalt on Vestal Street. This goes back to last March and April when we finally had our sewer and waterlines replaced. While I am all about preservation, 1903 piping is a bit old and tired and filled with tree roots to make the passage of sewer sludge quick and easy. While we still await some fixes to curbing – we have our original concrete curbs from 1946/1947 when Vestal Street was first paved – it was dirt until then! – some of them have been buried by time and just need some suavity to pull them up and get them back where they go. Thank you to the Town, N&M, and Victor Braden for completing the work thus far. But, with the paving completed, we may possible begin the replacement of some of our picket fencing and we have permission to restore our fences to what originally existed along the street in the 1920s and earlier – the rail was a rolled, thick top – and we are excited to use some grant funding to make that happen. Stay tuned! JNLF
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