Second Year of living in Fregon
Those Peskie Rabbits
October 1991
The latest family craze is rabbit shooting. The boys are really keen to get out into the wilderness and blast the little blitters to bits. You should see us with Bruce sitting on top of the car on a modified kitchen chair and both David and James sitting on either side of the packrack on foam and me driving the car.
Bruce had been given an old 22 caliber rifle which was worn out and only shoots straight occasionally. He decided that if he mounted the spot light on the side of the rifle he could see where he was shooting and the spot light was connected to a separate battery on the roof. Off the great hunters went into the other night along with the 3 dogs (Weasel, Shortie and Puddles, they were all in the car with me) and 2 very excited children.
The super Valiant. |
Just picture in your mind a car with 7 night driving light on the roofrack, 4 sparetyres, 2 spare batteries, a kitchen chair (later replaced with a car seat), 2 shovels, a 6 foot crowbar, a winch spare fire wood, 10 liters of fuel and 20 liters of water. In the car we had lots and lots of tools spare car parts, a floor jack, another battery, (connected in the boot to help run all of the lights) and enough wiring to light- up New York 9 (30 meters in fact).Not your average city car!! However if we ever got stuck we were prepared and everyone in town recognises it. |
Back to the rabbit shooting. There I am trying to drive, keep the dogs still ( they were running around with excitement and listening for Bruce to yell stop above the exhaust ( which had fallen off yet again). When "Stop!!!" had been shouted I had to quickly brake, turn all off the driving lights and stop the engine. As the key for the ignition had fallen off, Bruce had modified it so that and we were turning the car off by lining up a round thing ( which only fitted one way) and that was hanging off the dash with a wire. Not an easy task! We didn't get many rabbits as Bruce was trying to whisper "Stop", me not hearing then David Yelling" STOPPPPP", me then attempting to stop the engine, the dogs jumping around and if the rabbits were suffering from major hearing loss and they were still there Bruce would go to shoot the rifle only to have it jam and not firing. The boys learnt some new swear words. Then if the rabbit was paralysed due to old age or with laughter then Bruce would shoot it. I would have to jump out of the car and find the thing in the pitch black night.
The dogs would run around madly and eventually find the rabbit but 9 times out of 10 the rabbit would have hopped down its hole. Shorty got that excited that she vomited all over the back seat and I had to clean it up before anyone would get back in the car. Better than sitting home though.
The next time we went out shooting Bruce had got a bit more organised and put a new exhaust on the car and an on/off switch on the dash. I only got bogged once but almost 3 times, so my driving must be improving at driving in soft dirt and sand.
Last night we got 10 rabbits and Bruce sells them for $5 each but we spent from 8pm to 2am to get them. It would be easier to get a new riffle because each rabbit had about 6 bullets shot at it.
Bruce shooting the 22 rifle with telescopic sights:
This didn't help much
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One night we got 5 rabbits and he shot off 270 bullets!!! A good shot he isn't but he is getting much better as last night he only used 250 bullets for 10 rabbits! I wonder how long it would take for 1 bullet to 1 rabbit will happen?
David loves eating rabbit. I wont cook them as I hate the smell of them cooking as they also remind me of my pet rabbits "Thumper and Snowy" which I had as a child, so when David want to eat rabbit he takes them over to Treakles house and they cook them on a camp fire and eat them with lots of salt.
Some of the best and most memorable experiences were when we would go out rabbit shooting some of the others stories follow later.
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