I shot the second rabbit, but not as cleanly as Chance had shot the first one. It was bleeding on the driveway next to the passion fruit vine and the vegetable garden, from which it had occasionally dined, and I felt terrible.
Chance felt bad too, which is why he is my favorite hunter. Before I could put my gun down, Chance had run over and picked up the bunny and begun putting it out of its misery and processing it on the spot. This wasn’t his first rodeo. He grew up harvesting his own meat. Yet he has as big a heart for animals as anyone I know. And the only reason either of us was out in the yard killing a couple of rabbits was to make dinner for our families.
That sounds far more pious than it deserves. But it’s pretty much the whole truth, except that getting the rabbits would also serve to protect the lettuce in my vegetable garden that they had been munching on lately. This was beyond “Integrated Pest Management.”
The day before, Chance and his wife Katie and their children had arrived from Oregon to stay with us for a few days, and upon their arrival they noticed the numerous cottontails in our yard. They eat my vegetables sometimes, I said. There are so many of them.
A few months back, my friend Erik had come over and for the first time we shot one and cooked it up, but it didn’t taste as good as it should have: my fault. Erik had done the shooting and processing well; I had fouled up the cooking.
Someday, I want to slow-cook one with spices and vegetables from the garden, I said to Chance. He really liked that idea. Chance is first and foremost an eater, not a hunter. If you visit his house, yes, you’ll see a giant rack of elk antlers above his porch, but you’ll also be served elk for dinner.
I’ve always hated killing garden pests. So over the years, I’ve tried to find ways to make use of them, to turn them into resources. The earwigs and pill bugs are now prey for our chickens. Most gophers I catch I feed to our cat. I’m still unsure of what to do with ground squirrels, but maybe someday I’ll use them like the two rabbits Chance and I got on this day.
After we finished cleaning the rabbits, we put the meat in plastic bags and tucked them into the fridge. We both agreed that cooking and eating them the next day would allow us to enjoy the taste more because it would provide distance from the distasteful sights, smells, and emotions of killing the rabbits.
So it was the next morning that Chance started loading the meat into the Crock Pot, and I went outside to gather Anaheim, Serrano, Shishito and Poblano peppers from the garden. We used my wife’s Pork Chile Verde recipe as inspiration. Chance added the peppers along with some onions, garlic, tomato, oregano, and sage from the yard. The sage he used was white sage, Salvia apiana, native to our neighborhood. I wasn’t sure it would taste good as I’d never cooked with it. But Chance added some, set the Crock Pot temperature on low, and we all went to the beach.
When we returned late that afternoon, the kitchen smelled rich. In the evening we served the stew in bowls and added tortilla chips, and then topped it off with a little cheese and sour cream. We ate our rabbit tortilla soup in front of the house, right next to the garden that had grown it. It tasted far better than any of us expected. The only criticism was that we had cooked the rabbits nearly whole, and so there were quite a few small bones to pick out as we ate. The flavor and texture, however, had nothing to be improved.
Some days later, after Chance and Katie and their children had flown back up to Oregon, my wife and I reflected on the rabbit tortilla soup meal and joked about the way a trendy restaurant might present it on a menu: wild caught, sustainably harvested, organic, all natural, local, heirloom, artisan, pasture raised, yard-to-table. Gag. And how much they would charge!
Meanwhile, when I told my sister about what we’d eaten that day she said she wouldn’t have been able to eat it. “I just feel sad for animals,” she said. “I don’t want to know that my meat ever had a face.”
I understand, I said. I think we’re supposed to feel sad any time we kill an animal. Buying ground beef at a grocery store precludes us from feeling sad about the fact that someone had to kill a cow to make that ground beef, and at least once in our lives — if we’re going to be meat eaters — we ought to kill one of the animals that we eat so that we can feel that sadness. And perhaps we’ll eat higher quality meat from then on, and perhaps we’ll eat less meat too. Both are probably good things.
(I’m not interested in grossing you out, but if you want to see this photo of Chance’s handiwork you can click it to enlarge.)
Wow, this rabbit tortilla soup was becoming more significant by the day. Originally, it was just a convenient and economic meal, since we’d gotten all of the main ingredients from the front yard, and it put to use a garden pest. It was a little adventurous too. And then it started to seem like such a good meal, morally, if you’ll compare it to most other meals that include meat. My sister reminded me that there was sadness in it, as we’d had to take a couple of animals’ lives.
I hadn’t grown up hunting like Chance. I grew up not really making the connection between the chicken my mom made for dinner and the hens my grandparents had in their backyard. I wonder how my children will look back on their growing up in my backyard.
A couple days ago, I was adding some rabbit leftovers to a burrito when Cass, my three-year old son who loves to help me cook, asked, “Is that the rabbit that Uncle Chance got?”
“Yeah, it is. You’re right.”
“Can I have a bite?”
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Rabbits are a big pain in my garden. Not only do they eat my plants, they also chew holes in the deer fence and they chew up drip line in search for water. Ive shot them and eaten it but it wasnt very good tasting. Maybe crockpot with lots of spice is the answer. Now I just shoot them and leave them out on some large boulders like the ones in your photo and the crows and buzzards get a free meal. I put dead mice out there too and the birds take care of it.
If you want to keep them out of your garden, the best way is 1″ hole chicken wire. 3ft wide. 1ft on the ground tacked down or rocks on it so they cant go under and 2ft above ground staked around as a bunny fence.
Sounds like you’ve got it worse than me. I’ve never had the cottontails chew fence or drip line, luckily.
When we moved in and started our garden in this yard four years ago, the rabbits ate everything. I was so angry, and I went out with a flashlight every night to shoot them.
I’ve tried to avoid putting up a fence though because I want my kids to have unfettered access to the garden from the time they start walking. I just love having it open. But the downside is obvious: the plants are vulnerable to them and every other pest.
Surprisingly, the rabbits cause far less damage these days. And I’m pretty sure it’s due to the feral cat that has adopted our yard. I just saw it eating a young rabbit a couple days ago. We put some food out for the cat occasionally so it will keep hunting in our yard, but we don’t feed it a lot because I’m afraid that will make it lazy.
Awesome! Makes me miss you guys…
I think you forgot the important detail of you taking five shots to kill your dumbfounded cottontail. Hehe
Thanks, Katie. But I’m pretty sure it was more like seven shots.
I grew up in the suburbs and as a kid I only shot a bird with a BB gun and then felt badly about it and that was that. Us typical Americans are so squeamish about killing an animal for food that in a disaster we would all starve. The first time I had to kill a rat, that was caught by the leg in a snap trap, it was tough. I asked a friend who grew up on a farm how to kill it. He said drown it, so I filled up a 5 gal bucket and dropped in the rat and trap. Then I held the trap under the water with a stick until the rat was dead. It was a strange feeling watching it die and I had all types of thoughts about that happening to me etc. I realized that I needed to toughen up. Then I thought about when I die the rats would be eating me. Too many of the public are too touchy feelie to survive in many circumstances. Many would not even use a gun to stop a home invasion if their family was being murdered. Anyway, I’m glad to see you discuss a topic that most never even think about. You are raising your children correctly in my opinion.
I’ve been down this path, Greg, but stopped at cleaning and cooking. Thanks for describing your thoughts and emotions about it, and the “recipe”.
When I was a kid (I was 10 years old in 1983 for time reference) we had 1 acre and my mom put me into 4H with most of the neighbor kids. She allowed me to take the rabbit class, my dad built a rabbit coop, and they bought me a male and a female Flemish giant. They grew, they played with my sister and me on our grass area, at some point she even got pregnant and had babies (they all died, we didn’t know she was pregnant), and at some point, I was told I didn’t need to finish the 4H class (required slaughter) and the rabbits got a new home.
Today, as a homeowner who got tired “real quick” of the bunnies eating my plants, I have taken to shooting them with a pellet gun. Odd because I’m very anti-gun. Turns out I am pretty good at yard-bunny marksmanship.
My husband’s specialty is gophers.
I kept domestic rabbits when I was a kid. I learned how to butcher them mostly from a booklet from the Extension Service, which had an office in our town at that time. The recommended way to kill a rabbit was to put on gloves, hold the rabbit down with one hand and, putting the other hand under its chin, pull up sharply to break its neck. It’s totally sickening the first time you do it, but it’s very quick and probably the least painful way. (Fortunately, rabbits are really boring as pets so there’s not much danger of getting attached.)
BTW, don’t forget the internal organs! Check out a good Italian cookbook (Tuscan or Ligurian) and just use them instead of chicken giblets.
I couldn’t believe it when I moved to Simi Valley four years ago and rabbits ate everything I planted. I fenced in my vegetable garden and that worked. But the best result was when I had a snake fence installed. It also kept rabbits out and now all my veggies are safe!
Ugh… I eat a lot of things, but I couldn’t eat the rabbit that was part of the menu at this place in Spain. They used rabbit (fried) ears as a snack (think of a celery stick), that you dipped into a salsa made with its heart. The chefs like to use all parts to minimize waste.
We also contend with rabbits. I don’t have a pellet gun, or I’d be interested in recreating the rabbit dish I had in Paris, in a Dijon mustard sauce. It’s a fairly common way to serve rabbit. Farmed rabbits are probably milder in flavor than backyard rabbits. Interesting side note, our retired greyhound was recently on a nighttime walk. On a 4ft leash, walking our poo area in the dark, pouring rain, when he snagged a juvenile from under a wild sunflower shrub. It didn’t know what hit it. If there were no danger of him racing off our unfenced property to eventually be hit by a car, we’d have a reliable solution. He surrendered the kill and we tossed it to the coyote area.
Hello Greg,
Do I or do I NOT eliminate avocados on a graft branch that is now 1 ft long and is horizontal and now holds 5 Pinkerton avocados . The weak point must be the graft. and the heavier they get the more of a chance the branch will break. (this is the first year since the graft)
I have placed a 2 ft “splint” along the horizontal branch l. The young avocados are approx 1.5″ in diameter
I have also placed a pole under that branch to help support the avocados…..so, the big question?
Do I cut all the fruit or leave one or all ? Am I best to cut all so the branch grows or strengthens?
Thanks for any guidance
Hi Al G,
I once was in a similar dilemma as you. I had two Pinkerton grafts on a Fuerte tree that set fruit. If I recall correctly, I let one hold three avocados and I let the other hold four. Both branches matured their fruit and did not break. Not long after I harvested the fruit, both branches died.
The question you need to answer is: Do you want a few Pinkerton avocados this year or do you want to grow that branch bigger so that it will remain alive and vigorous so that it can provide you many Pinkerton avocados in the future?
See this post that contains my Pinkerton grafts: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/grafting-a-pollenizer-branch-into-your-fruit-tree/
Right after reading your response, I went out and cut all avocados on the three successful grafts from my Pinkerton tree. This is the first year they produced from last years cleft graft. I would rather harvest fruit in the years to come.
Also, last year I had one successful cleft graft from an old family favorite avocado , its first year it produced fruit and by the time the fruit was approximately 3/4 inch in diameter, the 3 fruit fell and within 3 months, the branch died. Thanks for the guidance Greg.
At this point, I have a poor success rate for cleft grafts and this year am trying to graft Reeds on my poorly producing Sir Prize, I am trying Side Veneer grafts this season. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Thanks Greg for your advice
I have many rabbits in my yard & so far I’ve never had them eat my plants or irrigation system in 8 years. We have known each other a long time as I see them born close to the house often. I think I have smarter than average bunnies. When I start my plants the are covered with bottles (with bottoms cut off)until they reach a certain size. Little greenhouses if you will. I like the rabbits & talk to them softly often. We have gotten used to each other & I believe they know which plants are mine & respect my space. As I also do for them. They will eat any weeds next to my pl as nts but so far never eaten my plants. Chipmunks on the other hand will but only when I don’t have bird seed out for them. They will plant this seed next to my plants. Which I dont love but it doesn’t seem to negatively impact the plants. I should mention there is plenty of woods & farm fields where I live. Plenty of weeds & clover in the yard. I dont worry about the rabbits because we seem to have an understanding. Chipmunks also are smarter than we think but it takes time & understanding. Talk to them & use patterns. They will learn what you dislike & if they like you they will try to avoid disrupting harmony.