The End of the Easter Bunny

      You all saw my post of my incredible hunting day a few weeks ago.
      Just a few days ago, I topped it. Oh yes, it was awesome.
      No joke, honest to goodness, I shot the Easter Bunny.
      Well, it wasn't on Easter, but it was on Good Friday (that incident made it a VERY good Friday. :) )
      I went out to take some trash to the garbage on the curb, and spotting a few bunnies munching under our front tree, I came out a few minutes later, armed with a pellet gun and permission to bag me a bunny.
      Waiting for an opportune moment, and not wanting to shoot from the angle I was at for fear of missing and hitting a car or house across the street, I sat on the front porch and bided my time. After a while, my fear was that I had bided to much time, for now, all bunnies were out of my sight. I was sure they had moved and ran away at seeing me creep closer. So, rather bummed that I had missed my chance to shoot my first rabbit on our property, I headed up the driveway to see if they were still visible, or maybe even in our yard, down on either side by our trees, praying that God would let me bag a bunny.
      At around 5 yards from the front gate, I spotted him. He was not even ten yards away, in a slight clump of grass, just on the other side of the fence, off to my left.
      Bang.
      Wounded rabbit staggers away, looking at me funny. I follow, and two shots later, he is twitching on the ground, bloodying up my front yard. I found out later that I probably didn't need the next two shots, the first breaking the bone just above his nose, and going out the far eye, obliterating everything in-between (hence the reason he was bloodying up my yard.)
       I paced it out afterwards, and found I had shot him at 8 yards. Now, according to a friend I know, he says due to the amazing power of my .20 caliber pellet rifle, shooting a rabbit at eight yards isn't hunting; it's destroying perfectly usable bunny.
       I said that bunny had it coming to him, since he should have known better than to come to my yard.
      Anyway, he was dead. So now, I have a rabbit hide tacked up on a piece of plywood in my garage, and a bag of rabbit meat in the freezer.
      My theory is that the Easter Bunny was out laying his eggs for all the kids, was unaware that this was redneck territory, and strayed into dangerous ground. The rest, as we say, is history.
      My only trouble is convincing all the kids around the world that their favorite bunny has been brutally shot, and he will no longer be laying eggs for them each Resurrection Sunday (although how a bunny is supposed to lay eggs is the first place, let alone plastic ones, with candy inside to top it off, I have no idea)

The reason I have gloves on, is because I had started to gut him before I remembered that I wanted a picture, so I just left the gloves on and had Noah snap a shot.
 I had to hold him just right so you can't see the open side or the messed up and bloody side of his head ( for all my squeamish blog followers) :)

The carcass, after all the gutting and skinning was said and done, waiting to have the meat removed.

The finished product. 

    

True Grit: Review

         Well, recently there was a period of time (like, almost two weeks) where we spent almost all of our waking time at a friends house, waiting for a miniature horse to be born. That takes a LOT of patience....... which I don't have a lot of. :)
Anyway, we've done  LOT of Worldview, and had the chance to see a few movies as well. One of which is the famed John Wayne version of "True Grit".

        Here is my review.
        Lets start from the top. The story line is about a girl who goes in search of the murderer of her father, who has escaped into the Indian territory, and only a U.S. Marshal can go there to hunt him down legally. So, she picked up the meanest and toughest of the bunch, Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne). They and a Texas Ranger by the name of La-beaf (I can't remember his first name, but he's played by Glen Campbell) all head off into the Indian territory to search for the murderer, who has taken up with a notorious robber band, the main bad-guy played by Robert Duvall. So, after some action here and there, through some odd twists, the murderer is shot, La-beaf dies a hero, and Rooster is left to carry the girl to safety and a hospital before she dies of a deadly snakebite.
        So, in the end, Wayne is the Hero, with the girl, played by Kim Darby, showed to be pretty tough as well.
        All right, enough spoilers, on to worldview.
        The worldview in this movie STANK. The "Hero", Rooster, is a drunk for half of the movie. He sorta is cleared of the sin in the girls eyes by going up against four men at the same time and winning, showing his "grit", but he still is an awful hero in the Christian eyes. He is uncouth, swears, is disrespectful to the girl, but he does start to nicen up halfway through the movie. He is a U.S. Marshal, but when telling his history to the girl while waiting in ambush, he tells about how he robbed a bank when he was young to get him going in life, he talks about the woman he divorced and how horrible she was and how the boy they had hated him.......
and the list goes on. The "hero" in this movie is a utter failure at "hero-ness".
          The Ranger, La-beaf, is stuck up, a bit on the "know-it-all" end, doesn't think much of Rooster and is disrespectful, but does die a hero in the end for shooting the main bad guy off his horse from way up on a butte, and helps haul Wayne and the girl out of a hole while being half dead from a blow to the head, and then dies gloriously by falling off the horse just as the girl and Wayne are safe.
          And if that wasn't bad enough....
          The main character, "Maddie" is a feminist farmgirl. She is a girl who knows her way around in the world, knows when she's right, and will not back down till she gets her way. One of the ways this is played out the worst is by insisting that she go along with the two men to hunt down the murderer, refusing to listen to them telling her she can't, and going along anyway (a serious crossing of the line of male headship and woman submission, as well as her even going on such a dangerous mission).
        The creators of the movie were very clever in hiding the feminism, by everyone in the movie looking down on the girl, belittlinging her, and always telling her to run along back to the farm to help mamma with the milking. They used this to elevate the woman in your mind, out of the unjust treatment, over all these mean people treating her like trash. The way the treated her was not right, but it is used in a knee-jerk reaction to put the woman a notch higher than she should be in the intellectual hierarchy-- a very clever stratagem by the creators. Also, all the main men in the story are shown to be less determined and less honorable than she is, backing out of agreements, being outright rude and manipulative, and the list goes on, lowering men and elevating the smart farm girl.
        Ok, enough bashing. My few praises of the movie.
        The score is excellent, the scenery they filmed on is GORGEOUS, and the part where Wayne takes on four opponents on horseback, swinging his rifle to chamber rounds with his right hand, firing his pistol with his left, and holding the reigns is his teeth, was kinda cool (that deep down cowboy in me really liked that part :) )      
        There was also a little clean humor in a courthouse scene, the funniest part in the whole movie, I think.
        All in all, not a family friendly movie, considering the cussing, and the horrible characters and worldview.

A Good Day In the Life of a Hunter

        That insatiable desire to shoot things: I have never understood it, but boy, I'm there. I'm a hunter, 100%, and proud of it (in a humble sort of way of course) :)
        Anyway, every year around the fruit season, the grackles have a hay-day on our plums, apricots, blackberries (what little there was in the first place) etc.
        SO.... this is a win-win situation. :) I can kill two birds with one stone! (well, actually its one bird with a pellet at a time, but you get the point)
        I can HUNT, and KILL THINGS, and at the same time, ELIMINATE the PESTS. :) I crack out my pellet gun, and wait on either side of my yard, waiting for grackles or birds of the sort to land on the tops of the trees on the side of the yard, or in the very top of the big pecan trees.
        WEEEELLL, this is fruit season.....
        ....Guess what I did the other day?? :)
        Oh yes, it was a great day in the life of an All-American Hunter.
        Normally, on an average day of hunting (with my pellet gun), I will shoot 4-10 rounds, and if it's a good day, I will bag one on the 4th or 5th shot, and then, three shots and three misses later, I am forced to be content with only one kill.
        HOWEVER, IT WAS A NOT A GOOD DAY. IT WAS A GREAT DAY.
        A total of six shots, with 3 kills, maybe four. Every shot but one hitting a bird.
        Shot #1.
         I walked out onto the side yard on the south, spotted a bird in a big palm trees, and one shot, one kill, dropped it first shot. Thank you Lord, it's already a good day.
        Shot #2.
         I put No.1 in a safe spot out of reach of a hungry dog's mouth, reloaded, and walked around the corner of the house, going north, spotted another bird in the tops of the trees on the other half of the yard, and again, dropped him first shot. Thanks again Lord.
        The third shot went to finish off a bird Noah had dropped, was stuck in a tree, and I could basically put the barrel in his eye and finish him off (so I did).
        Shot #4.
         I walked west, towards the front, and spotted a big, fat, shiny black grackle, posing at the top of the elm tree out front. Well, I just couldn't resist. :) One shot, one kill. I'm pretty sure he was dead before he hit the ground, but he was still twitching. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, this is a good day.
        Shot five blew a lot of feathers off the back of one back on the north side of the house, and he dived down and I had assumed he flew off, but I now think that I killed him too, because the next day as we were leaving the house, I spotted (thanks to Noah) a dead grackle, the same size and color as the one I had shot at on the day previous, in the neighbors front yard on the south side of the house--the same side of the house and directly in the area where I plugged her. So if thats so, that makes 4 birds in one day. Not exactly verifiable, but I'm positive. :)
        The only shot that missed, shot #6, the only reason I missed is because just as I pulled the trigger, he flew. I'm guessing I put a hole in his tail.  :)
        So, a very good day, the best grackle hunting day I have ever had. A total of five annoying birds eliminated from the neighborhood all in a period of a half hour.
        Praise God for Pellet Guns and pests, and praise God for his dominion mandate, allowing us to kill and control his creation.  :)  Let me tell you, I LOVE it.
        So, as long as I have a pellet gun and ammo, No bird in my neighborhood is safe.  :)

Noah's gun and kill on the left, with my kill No. 2, 1 and 3, in that order from the left, with my bird slayer next to it. :)