Springtime is here, and it was time to mow the lawn for the first time in a long time. First on the agenda was to fill up the empty gas can, which cost me about $16 bucks – geeeeesh, back in the day it would cost less that five buck to fill that sucker up. After filling up the old mower and about 15 pulls of the cord on a hibernating lawn mower I was off and mowing on a beautiful North Texas late afternoon.
I finished in good time and made my way back to the shed I built last year to get some lawn tools and there to my astonishment was a decapitated little bunny. It must have run from the shed and I must have accidentally and unknowingly hit the poor little thing. All that was left was a small little bunny body. I really felt sad. I remember as a 16 year old kid driving home from a friend’s house back in the woods (that would be you, Tim) and making a little rabbit my first roadkill. It appears I’m no friend of the bunny.
I buried the little fella next to the shed. Rest in peace little buddy.
Trust me, you are better off with the dead rabbit. We have had rabbits eating all of our landscape this winter/spring. We are having to sprinkle ‘coyote urine’ around the garden and replace plants with ‘non-rabbit friendly’ varieties. It is expensive. I just wish my wife would let me use the ‘ol shotgun deterrent.
Accident huh…
Right…., we’ve all heard about you people who kill innocent animals.
I’ll be looking for you on the “the first 48”
Never have killed a bunny with my mower but I fileted a garter snake a few years back. Man, was that disgusting.
I’m gonna play devil’s advocate now:
Do you feel this much regret every time you eat a steak? A burger? A chicken leg?
🙂
try this next time
This is how I remember my mother cooking rabbit: roasted on a bed of onions covered with crisp bacon, and rows of savoury stuffing cooked alongside. I have added Madeira to the sauce, but you could use cider instead.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 lb 4 oz (560 g) wild rabbit joints, or boneless rabbit, same weight
12 rashers dry-cure streaky bacon, derinded and cut in half
1 large onion, peeled and sliced finely into rings
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 level tablespoon fresh chopped thyme, plus a few sprigs
10 fresh sage leaves dipped in olive oil
salt and freshly milled black pepper
For the stuffing:
grated zest ½ small lemon
½ level tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
1 level tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
6 oz (175 g) pork sausagemeat
1 heaped dessertspoon fresh white breadcrumbs
½ onion, finely chopped
2 oz (50 g) Bramley apple, peeled and very finely chopped
salt and freshly milled black pepper
For the sauce:
5 fl oz (150 ml) Sercial (dry) Madeira (or dry cider)
Preheat the oven to gas mark 7, 425°F (220°C).
You will also need a shallow oven tray 10 x 14 inches (25.5 x 35 cm), lightly buttered.
First of all, spread the onion rings all over the baking tray in a single layer then scatter over the crushed garlic and thyme. Now season the rabbit joints and arrange them on the bed of onions. After that, drape the bacon rashers over the rabbit pieces.
Next, make the stuffing by mixing all the ingredients together and forming the mixture into 12 small balls. Place these among the rabbit joints then tuck in the thyme sprigs here and there. Place the baking tray in the oven on a high shelf and cook for 20 minutes. Then top each piece of rabbit with a sage leaf dipped in olive oil. Roast for another 15-20 minutes or until the bacon and sage are crispy and the rabbit is cooked.
Now remove everything to a warmed serving dish, place the roasting tray over direct heat and add the Sercial Madeira to the juices. Bring to a simmer and bubble for about 5 minutes until reduced by about a third. Check the seasoning then pour the sauce over the rabbit and stuffing. Serve with crisp roast potatoes and a green vegetable.
This recipe first appeared in Sainsbury’s Magazine (Guide to Poultry and Game Cookery).
you’re a psychopathic bunny beheader. did you put a black hood over her face? did you video tape it? you have bunny blood on your hands, and that doesn’t wash off—ever.
peta
I wasn’t the executioner of the mama bunny, but became the nurse of six precious little Peter and Pattie Cottontails back when I was seven. A guy mowing our yard whacked their Mom to bits, then found the little babies in a ground nest, and brought them to me.
Boy was that a handful at the time – they didn’t even have their eyes opened when it happened. Eye droppers full of Carnation Milk did the trick, and a few months later, I set them off on their merry way.
We’ve had a few others since then, over 40 years later, and one even hung around a long time……….and yep, we called him Peter Cottontail. Gosh, I hope nothing like that happens to me this spring!
You have my sympathies. I’ve never hit one, but did take the top off a ground nest and uncover a baby who’d already been savaged by a predator, the pelt irreparably damaged. The vet tried to help me save it, but the poor thing died within three days.
After that, I always made sure to walk the yard with a rake clearing thatch before mowing and to bump the mower front to back like one of those bouncing suspension cars because cats like to hide under them in the shed.