WARNING: THIS BLOG IS ABOUT SHOOTING FERAL ANIMALS. IF YOU DON’T LIKE SHOOTING PLEASE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER
Last night was one of those magic nights. Cool after the heat of the day, with stars blazing in the clear sky. After dinner, we sat outside in the dark for a while, snuggled up watching for shooting stars.
“I don’t think we’ll go out tonight” said Doc “Let’s just go to bed.”
Sounded like a good idea to me, so off I went. I was lying in bed waiting for Doc to join me, when I heard the bang of the .222 from the yard. Next thing, Doc rushed inside. “Get your arse out of bed, you’re going on your first pig hunt.” Who said romance is dead?
So up I got. First priority was to get dressed. Doc was already in his long camo pants and was busy pulling on his boots. I knew I’d need protective foot gear as well, so I grabbed my bright pink gum boots with psychedelic stars. And it was cool so I put on my knitted pom-pom hat.
Meanwhile Doc was gearing up. He grabbed the .308 and the shotgun, talking all the while. “I wounded it, so you’ll have to be careful, it will be angry.” He said as he slung both guns over his shoulders and handed me a torch.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked “Throw it at him?”
“No. If you see it, just hold your nerve. Stand still and shine the torch on it so I can shoot it.” He said in all seriousness. Yeah, sure. I’ll just stand there in front of an angry, charging pig.
You know that children’s song “We’re going on a bear hunt”? Well it was a bit like that.
We’re going on a pig hunt. We’re going to catch a big one.
I’m not scared – not with my torch to protect me!
So off we went.
Oh look, grass. Long, swishy grass
We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it
Ohh, no! We gotta go through it
Lucky I had my protective pink gum boots on. Swish, swish, swish, swish
Then we stopped to listen, and shine the torches around. “Over there. I can hear it squealing”
“No, that’s just a tree creaking”
Oh look, a gum forest. A dark, scary gum forest.
We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it
Ohh, no! We gotta go through it
Crash, crash, crash on all the fallen twigs, leaves, branches and rocks. That pig will never know we’re coming.
Oh look, a fence. A wire, farm fence
We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it
But the pig can – through that great big hole where the wire has been pushed up.
So there we stood, Doc against the fence, me pressed right up close behind him, shining our torches all around the tea tree scrub on the other side of the fence. Stopping periodically to listen.
“He can’t have gone far” Doc kept saying, “I wounded him. We’ll have to find him, we can’t leave him out there wounded.”
So we kept looking.
I was getting ready to run – back from the fence, back through the gum tree forest, back through the long swishy grass, up the veranda steps, in through the front door, and back into bed with the covers over my head if that pig put in an appearance.
And then we saw it. Lying very, very still in the grass right where Doc shot it, with a clean shot straight through the lungs. Doc is a very good shot, and careful. It must have had a friend that ran off crashing and squealing through the grass, the gum tree forest and the wire fence.
So guess what we’re doing tomorrow night?
