Blogophilia 41.3 Topic: "Going For It"

Blogophilia 41.3 Topic: "Going For It"
Bonus points:
(Hard, 2 pts): include "playing with a rabbit (or b00nie)"
(Easy, 1 pt): use a word in German (not the phrase "in German")

Picture guesses:

Line of fire

Shooting it out

Fighting for us

A blast from the past

A ray of hope

Getting down to business

Everyone was excited to see him when he arrived home.  He had been out hunting, so what ever he had was going to be supper that night.  Mom had been busy fixing biscuits and picking out the vegetable in hopes she had something that would go well with what ever he brought.  She knew it wasn’t much but it what they had and it was all they could afford.  Times were hard, work wasn’t easy to come by, even for a many who could do just about any job you could think of, you might say he was alleskönner.  Well any that didn’t require a diploma from high school much less college.  

It would seem times had been hard for a boy born in the 30’s on a farm in rural Nebraska.  Being one of the younger boys in a family with 12 children.  When a ride on the wagon to town once a month was a treat, you learned a lot of things that didn’t come from a book.  Hunting was one, it was also one that could keep you feed when money was tight.

Making do with what you had was one of the things Mom and Dad learned growing up.  Large family’s and little income made for a lot of making do.  See mom grow up working in the berry fields,  going from field to field, staying in tarpaper shacks.  She often told the story of her brothers going and digging an old seat from a car out of a hole along the road, so they would have a coach in the shack.  It was also full of rattlesnake when they pulled it up, but they got it and brought it back, snake free.  This old seat ended up being the birth place of the youngest child in mom’s family.  Though I never met her she drowned in an irrigation ditch the next year.  You see in those days you didn’t hire a babysitter, you had the older kids watch the younger ones.  Though in this case the oldest ones were working in the fields, which left the kids that were to young to work in the field to watch each other.  Which meant if you were any age under 5 or 6 you were left in charge of the really little kids, in this case the twines and the baby, who just happens to be crawling.  Now mind you this was in the 40’s and things were a lot different than they are today.  People just made do with what they had.

But we have moved up in time to the mid-sixties.  A young couple with a growing family with a little girl and a baby boy, as well as one on the way.  Dad just came in from hunting and he had a bunch of rabbits.  In fact he had enough for a couple days eaten.  He also had a surprise, not all the rabbits were died, he one that was still alive.  He gave it to his daughter.

She was tickled pink, it was so soft and warm.  She had set on the floor just like dad told her, so he could put it in her lap.  Once there dad told her to go for it, you can pet it.  She was ever so gentle with it, it was tiny, even tinier then her brother when he came home to live with them. 

That bunny didn’t try to get away, it wasn’t like the white rabbits she seen on TV, but it was hers.  She was making plans and telling mom and dad what she would call it and how she would take care of it, all the while petting it softly.

After a bit dad was ready to skin the rest of the rabbits, he had gutted them but needed someone to hold the legs while he pulled the skins off.  He went to get his daughter to help.  As mom was getting ready to was the rabbits so she could start cooking them.  She was reading the egg wash so the floor would stick and heating the skillet.

Well the daughter wasn’t but a few feet away from the table where dad was, but he still had to get the rabbit from the girl.  So she could help with the skinning.

Well, I was that girl, sadly to say wild rabbits have heart attacks when people handle them and sure enough that is what happened to this one.  I petted that little thing long after it died in my lap, not knowing it had died.  Need less to say dad took it and gutted it when he saw it was dead.  Then he had me stand in front of him holding the back legs, one in each hand while he pulled the skin off, each and ever one of those rabbits.

I closed my eyes because I couldn’t watch, while the sound it made, made me want to cry.  I did eat rabbit that night, although I made them tell me which peaces were not from the one that had been mine.  At the time I believed them, now I know they couldn’t tell which was which.  When I got older I couldn’t eat rabbit anymore, I still don’t.  I can’t look at it with out seeing live bunnies hoping about.