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| Back in the same country, different house. Again. So what's new.
I'm feeling gloomy. Why, I don't know, not exactly. Things were great for a while. All good things come to an end. What goes up comes down. Something is missing.
One of my earliest memories involved catching spiders with my cousin Audrey during recess time in primary school. There was this huge tree with hanging aerial roots near the back gate. It was dark and scary behind the tree, some part of me felt like I was going to get eaten by the big bad tree. I bought sour plum just to get the plastic containers. We caught some black spiders, and I once got a golden one. We would bring them home and tried to get them to fight. They never did, they just stared at each other. Over the months, they died or we released them. We've changed so much since then.
Fuck this. I'm done for today. | | |
| One month since I last made an entry. What a month.
8th october, early am, I was typing out that entry. Went to sleep, woke up, got a call from my mum and found out my grandmother had died. Went out, came home, found that the possum was dead.
I was in a bad mood for quite a while. Exams started the next week and I won't be doing too well for them.
For the previous entry, here he is sleeping on top of my heater.
 
About 2am, it started eating again, just an apple and a leaf.
It was dead the next evening. The burial was on wednesday.
Death. You keep asking, 'what if?'
Post death examination of the possum revealed some dark red bruises on its abdomen, legs and one foot. No prizes for guessing what caused those marks.
So... ok.
Exams finished, I finished my last week of data entry and went back to making some money the easy way.
They are simply pieces of metal but they look so...sexy. In the words of Ms Paris Hilton, "That's hot".
My last lab session for cell bio, possibly my last lab, ever.
Back to wandering the hills. Found this herd/tribe/mob/group of feral goats in one of the paddocks and watched them for an hour while waiting for the rabbits to appear.
 
Goat stew, anyone? Reminded me of the mutton soup at bedok interchange. I can't wait for that.
Saw this little guy too. When I first saw it from a distance, I was wondering "is that cow shit? why is it moving?"
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| Note: Two dead animals below.
Last friday, 28th September, I went out possum hunting. Long story short, I didn't enjoy it. It was less hunting, more simply shooting.
Once I chased the possums up the tree, it was all over. And possums are tough animals. The first possum I shot in the side of the head, and it died immediately. The second one was hit in the forehead between the eyes. It fell out of the tree stunned but still alive. In total, I shot it 6 times in the forehead with the air rifle, and it stayed alive. I felt like a complete asshole, and also very amazed.
That moment, I looked at my supposedly magnum powered air rifle with absolute disgust. I wanted a firearm or at least a knife. At last, I got down and wringed its neck with my hands. That put me in a very, very, very foul mood.
I saw a few more possums on my way back, but I left them alone.
The next night, someone asked me over to his place to join him check whether his cyanide was working. We spent 2+ hours and saw 3 possums, so he was quite pleased. We only got one of them. It was hit with a .22 lr shot to the chest and was still going strong as expected. I decided to give my air rifle a second chance. The shot hit at the side of the head and it was dead. That answered a question, part of the problem was me, I was hitting the wrong place.
So that's all the possum shooting I will be doing for a while. If they were creating a lot of damage and were going to be poisoned anyway, and I had a firearm as a backup, I would do it. But if not, I take no joy and will let them be.
My new pet. A possum. My first living pet in years.
I brought the possums back to skin them, and found the hard-to-kill one had a baby in its pouch. We left it inside overnight, then pulled it out the next afternoon. It was quite timid for the first two days, then it got very active and curious, kept squeezing through the cage's wires and escaping.
It was old enough to eat solids, but still young enough to need milk. Fed it leaves, fruits, and veges.
The cute guy cheered me up after the previous night's episode. He was quite scratchy and bitey. Then I realised it was scratching me because it was trying to climb up to my hair, like it would have done with its real mum by climbing on her back. And it was bitey because it wanted milk.
As I type this, I'm feeling quite stink. Saturday evening, it tried its escaping act again and got stuck. When I got to it, its lower body was icey cold and it was quite weak. I had to use pliers to bend the wires and get it out. Thinking it was ok and would get its circulation back, I popped it back into the cage, covered it with the towel, threw some food in and left. Before I slept, I checked on it and it had not moved but was still alive so I didnt bother it.
This afternoon, it was in the same position still. I didn't see any movement so I prodded it. It began squeaking. I decided to let it sleep.
Tonight, it still had not moved. It felt cold and I thought it was dead. Then as I brought it out, it squeaked again. I brought it to my room and fussed over it from 10.30pm till now, nearly 1am. Turned on the heater, held and warmed it in my hands for an hour, and it's warmer but very weak. Milk is finished, will need to get some tomorrow, if it lives.
As I went through it, I thought about how damn ridiculous this was. People are poisoning, shooting and trapping these animals by the million every year. I did some pest extermination just a week ago, and here I am, trying to save the baby of a possum I shot. Ironic shit.
A week ago, I would have quite quickly put the possum out of its misery. But now, now that it thinks I am Mother/Father, and I am responsible for it, I won't do it. When I play fps war games, I would restart a 30min mission so that I can save some idiotic AI soldier who stood up from cover when under fire. I hate screwing up things that are in my charge.
Damn it. I told myself not to care, not to get close, but I have gotten close to it.
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| WARNING: This post contains photos of a dead animal.
If you are a vegan, vegetarian, or someone who doesn't do much cooking, you might want to think twice before scrolling down.
Sunday, 2nd September 2007
On this day, for the first time in my life, I willfully killed an animal (fish excluded).
Now I'm a person who loves animals and wouldn't even kill mosquitoes unless they were seriously pissing me off. But I love eating burgers and steaks and I told myself that if I couldn't bring myself to kill even a rabbit, I don't deserve to eat meat and should turn vegetarian.
So this meant a lot to me.
A few weeks ago, uni holidays had started, and I had this idea of going out hunting with my air rifle. I had already spent hours of my time and over $100 on accessories and upgrades, and it's now much more sleeker than it was when my cousins were here.
Where to hunt? I went out knocking on doors asking for permission. After 6-7 hours, I had only 1 property to shoot on. So there I was, out in the field for several evenings, but either missing my shots or usually not seeing anything.
Sunday was going to be my last day there. I spoke to the neighbour again and he was concerned that I would somehow shoot his lambs, so I discussed with the owner and we agreed to leave it till after lambing.
That evening, I waited for hours but the rabbits were smart not to appear. But I was determined to at least catch a glimpse of a rabbit so I went to the car for a nap and got out again with my torch when it was black.
There was just enough moonlight and as I walked up a hill I noticed some movement even though it was a still day. Brought up the scope and I saw two rabbits. I was dressed in dark clothes that smelled of sheep and cow shit. The rabbits were hopping about completely unware of my presence as I snuck to about 20m from them.
As I aimed for the left one, the right one hopped towards me to around 10m away and I went for him/her/it instead. 'Buck fever' took over, my whole body was shaking like an industrial vibrator. When I pulled the trigger, the rabbit fell immediately. I was quite surprised because I expected a jump or some attempt to run. Later on, when I recovered the pellet, I noticed that I must have nicked its spine, which explains the drop. I was aiming for its eyes but shook my aim off to its neck.
I ran to it and saw it was bleeding in the neck and seemed to be breathing still. It was still alive and I felt bad, I wanted to end it quickly. I could have shot it again, but I have always maintained that "guns don't kill, people do". So I told myself to harden up. I held its head, thumb on its neck, grabbed its legs and pulled hard. The rabbit stopped moving and I excitedly took a few photos.
As I walked back to the car and drove off, the adrenaline was going away and realisation of what I had just done sunk in. Part of me was firm on "Bah, animal rights idiots. I like meat, animals are made of meat, end of story".
But the other part was telling me, "I killed a cute rabbit! I like rabbits, I had one as a pet!"
When I got home, I had to read up again on how to skin and gut the animal. After so many tries but not getting a rabbit, I had almost given up and promptly forgot the steps. I had also forgotten how bad rabbits can stink.
I skinned, gutted and portioned the animal from 12 to 2.30am. Left the organs in a box and a cat came and tried to steal it, leaving a big mess that I had to clean up.
The moment I made an incision in the skin, there was a strong stench.
Here's the fatal pellet. Hit in the right neck just beside the cheek, went through and out the left chest area.
The stench got worse when I cut its abdomen open and exposed its innards. It was a fascinating sight nonetheless.
I almost wished that I had taken anatomy. Almost.
Skin off, head off, feet off, innards out, Meat was very lean, hardly any fat.
I'll be tanning the skin and keeping as a souvenir.
Left to hang for 3 days, soaked overnight in salt water, marinated in grapeseed oil, white wine, garlic, thyme and other herbs.
Began to look less bloody and smelled less pungent.
Looked pretty good, smelled ok.
Looked good, smelled great. Until I tried eating it...
I overcooked it in the oven and it came out with parts burnt hard. Texture was similar to chicken, but was like chewing rubber. Game taste was especially strong at the ribs. My boiled and baked potato sides tasted better. But I finished everything up anyway. It was a sense of, "I killed it, I should do everything myself and finish everything up".
There. The first time I have shot and killed a live animal. I had killed. I had taken a life. I have been 'blooded'.
After the initial excitement, there was confusion. As I spent hours skinning, gutting, portioning and cooking it, I kept thinking about it. There's the excitement of the hunt, satisfaction at bringing food to the table, but also a sense of guilt for killing a cute wabbit.
Until today, I was still confused. Today, I decided that I would and will do it agian.
Anyway, I have seen a different side of life so to speak. To me, hunting is a means to get food rather than a sport.
At least I have killed my food once, instead of leaving it to the slaughterhouses to do the dirty work. If not for these people doing the killing behind closed doors, I wonder how many more people would become vegetarian or vegans.
I will appreciate my lamb chops a little better next time. | | |
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