Among the emails Chicken Corner has received this week are messages concerning a dwarf rabbit's death and the right to ride.

J Michael Walker, artist and writer of All the Saints of the City of the Angels, lost a good rabbit to the dread tobacco tree:

Walker wrote:

Dear Jenny, Amy is absolutely right. We had a pet dwarf rabbit several years ago. It lived in our house and, when it weasn't gnawing on the odd bit of furniture, was totally endearing and adorable (A word I rarely use). It was tame enough, and sure enough of its home, that I could let it loose in our front and back yards.

But there were two things I was then unaware of: First, tobacco plants are totally poisonous; second, rabbits will eat anything they do not retain, apparently, from generations past, the knowledge that other animals do, of what to, and what not to, eat. So Bunny delightedly ate of this and that in our backyard, and the small tobacco plant, that had self-seeded between cracks in our brick patio, proved her undoing.

I found a very very unpleasant path in the grass, that stretched from the plant to her stiff corpse, legs outstretched fore and aft. Not only had she died, but it was clearly not a painless one. Please underscore the danger to household pets.

In all seriousness, Walker's note has led to my decision not to get a rabbit because my yard is a hopelessly abundant garden of poisonous delights. I do not have tobacco trees, but I do have panamanian nightshade, lillies all over the place, belladonna, and who knows what deadly else. A horror show. And rabbits need to go outside.

People need to get out, too, which brings us to: mountain biking. A reader -- and mountain bike activist -- named William Campbell sent me the following defense of biking a couple of days ago:

Though I'm a mountain cyclist, I remain a big fan of your blog even after reading last week's post "Bike-land redux" perpetuating [the image of] all of us as outlaws astride flora-killing two-wheeled beasts.

I'll accept it as a consolation that you're OK with bikes on the streets. Certainly as a dedicated commuter cyclist I've encountered people as vehemently opposed to that practice as it seems you and your fellow neighbors are to the opening up of Elysian and perhaps Griffith parks to mountain cycling. Thank goodness there aren't enough irate motorists to rally around and get laws rewritten to ban me from biking on certain streets to and from my job.

For the record, and hopefully a different perspective, when I bike offroad, I do so with the utmost care and respect for the hills I ride such as those in the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains, and I strive to make as little an impact on the trails I traverse as well as on the enjoyment of the hikers and equestrians I encounter.

I like to think there's a lot more where I come from, but I'm not blind to the fact that there is certainly a contingent of riders who keep people proprietarily raging against our presence. Conversely I've encountered disreputable, disruptive and disrespectful hikers who do as much or more damage with carelessness and the treads of their shoes as you purport I do with those of my tires. I guess the difference is I don't extrapolate out from that subset to unfairly condemn a whole group.

Having pedaled the trails of Griffith and Elysian parks as a kid I am saddened by the discriminatory codes as they've long stood, but I respect them and ride my mountain bike only where I am able to legally. Amazingly I'm able to share those trails with hikers and horseback riders and in my 20 years as a practitioner of the recreational activity have never once had a negative encounter.

PS. If you're interested, here's the link to a short film I made of a trek down from Tongva Peak in the Verdugos back in 2004 that'll give you some idea of my quiet, leave-no-trace riding style: here.

Well, the first thing I noticed in this lovely short film is the fact that, besides, the cyclist no one else, unless you count the deer (?) skeleton, is present.