Rabbit stew

I went out last night with Paul from church to shoot rabbits. He has a firearms licence, so we took his .22 rifle and went to a friend's farm. After Paul gave me a safety talk, we walked round the fields a bit and took a few shots, but the real action came after the sun had gone down.

We drove round the fields in Paul's 4x4, using the headlights to illuminate the field. Every time we saw a rabbit we stopped, I leapt and and took a shot through the open window, resting on the door to help me aim. I was a bit slow, it being my first time, but I managed to shoot four. Paul got a couple that I felt were too far away for me to hit accurately in the head, which is the only humane way to kill them.

We left two behind, one because I'd had to shoot it twice (my first shot hadn't done the job), and the other because it had a weird growth in it when we gutted it. So I had two to bring home. We gutted them in the field, and then skinned them back at Paul's place.

And now, Tracy and I have just eaten one of them in a stew, including potatoes from the allotment, and the meat from the other one is in the freezer. It feels a bit weird eating something that was running round a field less than 24 hours ago, but I guess we'll get used to it. It's certainly more sustainable than eating meat that's been farmed in terms of environmental impacts.

Mike