Rabbit the other White Meat
This year I decided not to use a weed killer all in one
chemistry type fertilizer on my lawn.
All well and good the dandelions came up early in the season and I got
out there with the dandelion fork and dug them up and they have not been a
problem since.
We have many rabbits around our yard. They do not bother me, in fact I have often
found them to be endearing.
Something very interesting has started to grow on my front
lawn. It is a broad leaf lettuce type
vegetable. I can only believe that it
was planted by the rabbit or the rabbit spore on the front lawn.
I don’t feed the rabbits because I know all too well that
the food laid out can attract rats.
Indeed my neighbor had to use a rat trap to catch one and he did not
have the temperament to dispose of it from the trap.
About a month ago I was in the backyard and I watched as a
big black and white house cat chased down a small rabbit and held it by the
neck until dead. It then walked off with
it. It was disturbing to watch and I
yelled hey. Then I tried to squirt the
cat with a hose. Then I realized if I tried
to free that cat it would bite me quick.
So it is just an aspect of nature and nothing to get upset about.
I am getting to the point of this…
Last night I took the garbage out because the collection
pickup was this morning. As I looked out
towards the street to see what was going on I saw what looked to be a dog feces
on my driveway. I bent down to look at
it. Then I noticed that there were two
more of these on my driveway. I went
inside to get the flashlight and came back out to see that they were baby
somethings. I first thought that they
were tossed there on the driveway. But then
I saw that one had blood on the cement near it.
It looked dead to me. I went
inside to get a grocery bag and disposable blue gloves that I use to paint
with. I also took a few squares of paper
towel.
When I came back outside two of them were crawling. They had just been born. I did not know if they were rats or vermin or
whatever but rather quickly I went to get something to kill them with. I found a rusty sawzall blade, about 8 teeth
per inch for those familiar with tools, and held it to their necks and scraped
their necks until they were dead. Well they
were not completely dead but they were not going to live after that. Carefully I picked them up with the paper
towel and placed them in the grocery bag and in the garbage can they went. I tie the lids of metal cans shut with 3/8”
nylon rope. Plastic garbage cans are a
big environmental waste. I actually have
an invention that fixes metal garbage cans.
But here is the point.
I did not want to use that chemical weed killer fertilizer because it
eventually ends up in the water and that is very bad news for the
environment. But because I did not use the
fertilizer the rabbits flourished in our yard.
They also contribute to weed growth because of the seeds in their spore.
My grandmother lived in a small town in Iowa and she had a
metal grate box she used to catch rabbits that were in her backyard garden
with. She would ring their necks to kill
them. And we would have Hossenfeffer
Soup. I didn’t really like it because it
was kind of sour. She probably used
vinegar or sour milk with its enzymes in it to make the meat more tender.
My point has something to do with eating rabbits, chemicals
that are bad for the environment, weed overgrowth, bad water, local ordinances,
and the faint of heart who believe themselve’s to be sportsman with a love of
the outdoors, and the dangers of rabid vermin?
The point being if we want to have a green community in the
city we should be allowed to catch and eat rabbits. To be fair, I don’t even want to catch and
kill rabbits in the city, but we should have that right.
My first novel “The Voyage of the Cauldron Skipper” can be
found at the link below, virtually everywhere online and at select Milwaukee
area Booksellers.
My artwork can be found here:
My music CD “Plantation Songs by Thomas Paul Murphy” can be
found here:
I also have a new CD at the above address titled “Fading
Fall Expressions” it is my Native American Flute Music.
© 2012 Thomas Paul Murphy
Originally published on 08 14 2012 at: www.themilwaukeeandwisconsinnews.blogspot.com
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