Okay I grew up in the country and we had lots of animals,
what can I say? In fact it might better
be called a menagerie if you’d seen our acre block. Of course we had a dog (Rowdy – named by my
sister Glenda after the 60’s TV star of Rawhide (Rowdy Yates who was by the way played by Clint Eastwood). Eh, how good’s that for a memory. We also had a myriad of cats of one color or
another always mooching about as well as a rabbit (Bugs….yeah original I
know). He was snow white except for his
ears (one floppy and one regular) that were brown. We also had birds – Rosella’s, a canary and
a number of wild magpies that had been hurt and couldn’t fly so we fed them as
well. One big happy pet family!
 |
| Ferret's teeth - yikes memories of being bitten! |
However, all these animals pail in comparison to our pet
ferrets. Our ferrets like most people
know are ornery at the best of times, with exceptionally sharp teeth and
lightening quick reactions and reflexes.
Any momentary lapse in concentration while either carrying or feeding
one had dire consequences… most often you had two razor sharp teeth embedded
into the closest body part and let me tell you from personal experience that it
was painful beyond belief, having been bitten and nipped at least 25 times during my formative years.
Our ferrets were hunters so we put them to work hunting
rabbits; many an afternoon was spent out in the bush looking for rabbit warrens
(multiple rabbit borough openings). The
art to “rabbiting” as we called it, was locating a large warren, placing out
nets that fit perfectly over each one then placing a ferret or two in boroughs
either side of the warren and letting him loose to do their thing. Free and unencumbered by their carrying
box, they was free to run the length of the boroughs chasing unsuspecting
rabbits from their homes into our nets; where we would grab them and break
their necks (did I say I lived in the bush where this is common
practice?).
I grew up eating “lapin” (see my French is impeccable after
all these years living in Canada), and still love the taste to this day. My mum had a special recipe that she called
“braised rabbit”. Mum’s secret sauce for
this dish had bacon in it…don’t ask, mum was an excellent cook and devised some
tasty recipes and twists on recipes for the mundane food we had.
The best ferret story has to be dads though (he told me this
story shortly before he died).
 |
| Dad and his grandmother Clunes - Australia - circa 1947 |
His dad had recently died and he was now the bread winner
for the family at the ripe old age of 12 (his mum and three younger siblings);
times were tough - it was the final years of the war with most of the able
bodied men away fighting in the Pacific and so kids became the labor
force. Dad would use his ferrets to not
only catch rabbits for the family for food but to also sell for a penny a pair to
the local ice works who in turn sold them in great quantities to the Melbourne
based meat wholesalers. Times were
tough for everyone and rabbit was an everyday staple for many in Australia at
that time.
He and his best mate (“Snowy” Webb) were out in the horse
and jig ferreting one afternoon out along Creek Parade at the western edge of
town where the steep cliffs rise up from the narrow creek below. This part of town had been the heart of the
gold mining area or “diggings” during the 1850’s (Gold was first discovered in
Clunes in 1851 and triggered a gold rush of enormous proportions. At one point rumour has it that the town had swollen to over
30,000 people with 90 pubs…. yeah you do the math on that one). All well and good until the gold ran out in
the late 1880’s – much of the town is now completely abandoned, so perfect
for rabbits and other wild animals.
They came across, in dad’s words the “largest warren I’d
ever seen” and so they set about placing nets over as many of the boroughs as
they had nets for. When completed they only
had a handful of nets left of the 100 between them that they had started
with. Great - the stage was set to
really clean up and catch the day’s quota in one fell swoop.
They each carefully took their ferrets from the carrying
boxes and nodding to each other as the signal to place them into their
respective boroughs. It shouldn’t be
long now they thought as they congratulated themselves for finding the “mother
of all warren’s”. After a couple of
minutes of silence they began to lots of thumping and muffled noises coming
from the holes… but still no rabbits.
How perplexing?
Fifteen minutes went by – nothing. They agreed they should put in two more
ferrets, hopefully that would smarten things up and get a result – after all
this was the “mother of all warren’s”.
Thirty minutes and still nothing had come out…. The boys were getting just a tad frustrated
and annoyed by this stage.
 |
| African Boxthorn bush (the thorns about an inch long and razor sharp) |
Just as there hopes were beginning to fade about 20 yards to
the right up on a small rise a rabbit came shooting out from under a large
Boxthorn bush… Bugger they thought, we
must have missed a hole, dad quickly grabbed another net and ran to the
Boxthorn bush, but it was so thick he couldn’t see the hole clearly. Dad was pretty short, but wiry so Snowy encouraged
him to get down on his stomach and slide under the bush and find the hole and
get a net over it before they lost any more rabbits.
No worries thought dad and he went to ground and slithered
under the sharply festooned bush. As he
got under the bush he noticed the hole about 5 feet away by the base of the
hedge. Sliding closer he heard a rabbit
approaching fast and with no time to put a net over the hole or protect himself
from the quickly exiting rabbit it ran full speed into the prostrate dad
bouncing off his face. I’m not sure who
was more surprised the now dazed rabbit or my battered father? Dad had quickly regained his composure and
gabbed the rabbit by the scruff of the neck and quickly broke it, tossing it
behind him toward the opening from whence he’d come.
 |
| Rabbits in plague proportions in Australia during the 1940' - 1960's |
Dad’s squealing and quick backward retreat didn’t deter the ferret
one bit; as it held on tightly to dad’s nose, blood beginning to seep from around
the wound. As he exited backward and at
speed from below the Boxthorn bush Snowy was concerned that dad had been bitten
by a snake, but as dad turned with the ferret securely wedged right on the end
of his nose Snowy broke into uncontrollable laughter, and was literally rolling
on the ground, tear streaming from his eyes as dad danced around trying to
un-wedge the ferret from his nose without causing more damage. Not sure whether it was dad’s swearing or
pleading with Snowy that finally brought him round to help but by this time the
ferret had been biting on dads nose for a good two or three minutes with no
respite.
Snowy’s response was quick and unrelenting – he just grabbed
the ferret by the hind legs and yanked as hard as he could. You guessed it, it ripped a large chunk of
skin and flesh from the end of dad’s nose and that’s when the blood really
began to pour…
It became Snowy’s favorite story to tell others – “did ever
I tell you about Bill and the ferret?”
As you can imagine the story became bigger and better with every
telling, but Snowy’s best exhibit was the scar on dad’s nose as proof of his
misadventure.
I remember how dad’s eyes sparkled as he told me that story,
and how he laughed out loud at Snowy’s action filled response to his predicament.
I love that story dad – thanks for telling me!
No comments:
Post a Comment