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The Tale of the Back Yard Squirrel Hunter.........Fictional Happenings (or not!)
Author:
Butch Thurmond
Location:
No specified region.
May 23, 20101969-12-31 18:33:30
They had been at it for weeks. Cutting down little pieces of my live oak tree in my backyard! Some of the pieces they must have used for the nest resting in the top of the tree. Many others simply fell to the ground and had to be picked up before I mowed the yard. Not by them, of course!
But now, they were felling acorns. As I sat on my patio, covered by a tin roof, sipping my afternoon beverage, the nuts fell-making loud ‘‘bangs’’ as they hit overhead. It was frustrating, to say the least, especially after about three beverages. I looked out at them sitting happily over the patio and gave them a piece of my mind. They made some barking noises, undoubtedly squirrel talks meaning to ‘‘screw you’’. And, they kept on dropping acorns.
It was as if they were seeing how frustrated they could make me. And it was working! Later in the week, I was telling a friend about my acorn bombing squirrels, and he told me that he had squirrels actually eat a hole through his soffit to gain entrance to his attic. That was the excuse that I needed! The next morning I declared war on neighborhood squirrels. My very old .22 Benjamin pellet gun wasn’t accurate any longer. Or, I wasn’t. Seems that I needed a scope to hit anything these days, so I was off to Academy Sports. After purchasing a Gamo air rifle with an ‘old man’’s scope’ and a couple of targets, I headed for Wal Mart. Purchasing a bag of sunflower seeds, I was almost ready. Back home, I sighted in my new weapon, figuring about 50 feet was all I would need to shoot.
Filling my bird feeder with the sunflower seeds, I knew that they would soon be jumping on it to shake the seeds out. Later that evening, they bombarded me with acorns, but I knew that their time was coming. I couldn’t shoot them out of the top of the trees, the neighbor kids would go off crying and well, some of my neighbors seem to think that the tree rats are cute!
The next morning, there they were-eating sunflower seeds. Carefully, I opened the patio door, which was 50 feet from the tree. One of them flipped his tail, and they were off and running up the damn tree. Barking at me, it was as if they were saying ‘we are on base, you can’t shoot us’!
Now they brought out the real hunter in me. Removing the screen from my bathroom window, I opened the window a few inches. Inside, I waited! Down they came, all three of them. With one of them watching the patio door they were safe! Silently, my rifle barrel slipped out of the window, and-pop. One fell dead.
Not quiet understanding what had happened, the other two watched as she wagged a final flip of her tail. I was reloaded and-pop, another dead squirrel. That was too much for number three. She headed up the tree and was outta sight. I picked up the two dead ones and put them in the ‘fridge’. It took a while, but finally number three felt it was safe and came back down for another seed. Unfortunately for her, it was at the same time that I had to pee, and looking out the bathroom window, I saw her. It was her last sunflower seed.
Now, I had three dead animals. Dad always said “if you kill it you eat it’’. Or, something like that. It had been a long time since I had skinned a squirrel, but aha, the internet. The first site said to "skin it like you would a deer’’.
Soon the little critter was hanging by her head. It was tougher than I thought, as the cold skin was difficult to pull off. Took me longer than it should have, but ‘number three’ was a piece of cake-‘hot’ squirrel skins a lot easier then a cold one!
I saved the tails, as I figured I was well on my way to becoming rich! A famous trapper had told me that she saved her tails and sent them off to Mepps Lures for big bucks.
Butchering the squirrels was much easier and I soon had a bowl full of pieces. It was a small bowl.
Figuring that I should share the bounty with someone, I called my beer drinking buddy, Perry. "Are you nuts, I’m not gonna eat a rat," he said?
Couldn’t call the lady next doors, she would really go nuts. I loved to cook, and always figured that if you dredged meat in flour and fried it, made a gravy and put it all over rice, things had to be good. I knew also that wine went well with squirrel.
So, a bottle of wine later (only a little went into the stew!)my first subdivision squirrel stew was enjoyed on the patio-a suddenly very quite patio!
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