The Manicou Trap

I am not a vegetarian but I rarely eat meat. Times being what they are though, the term 'needs must' is especially apt. We spent the day bickering, which is very unusual for us. T keeps rabbits in a coop in the yard, of which, there are nine...to date,... and we had resolved that one would be on the menu this weekend. T would cull, (a much better word than kill) and I would clean, season and cook it. Many years ago, I had watched someone skin a rabbit and felt confident that I could remember how it was done. I was a little unsure about the cleaning part but Google provided the answers I was looking for and I took solace in one particular website that also gave detailed descriptions regarding bear and moose .I was lucky, it was just a 'leettle' ( banish all thoughts of Peter) rabbit. I strengthened my resolve and searched for recipes and settled on a combination of fricassee and saute, courtesy of SusieQ, and tried to ignore the accompanying cute bunny shots. It was, I admit, a mistake to mention tularemia or "rabbit fever" to T, who dismissed it as being "something I read on the computer" but Wiki alarmed me and I realised I would then have to examine the entrails, search for the liver and check it for any white or yellow bits.. Oh...... Breathing deeply I requested all knives to be sharpened, every available herb to be picked, the head to be removed and the carcass hung above a bowl, for the blood to drain. My mind then decided to explore Buddhism versus earth mother, "lucky" rabbits" feet and how to cure them, how to remove the skin and keep the fur from spoiling... whilst catching sight of leetle ears bobbing behind the chicken wire coop window. T, meanwhile, was engrossed in hand washing and muttering, 'too coward" and steupsing in a vexation. It was some agonising hours later that we both admitted that rabbit would not be on the menu, T confessing that he would have had some difficulty dispatching one of his 'babies' and me knowing full well that, even if I had managed to clean and cook, I doubted very much whether I would have been able to swallow. Tonight we are having rice and wings, which are cheap, come conveniently frozen, in a plastic bag, and bare no resemblance to anything that we have reared or fed.Which brings me to our next venture...The Manicou Trap. Beautifully built by T, (please zoom in and take special note of the Adidas hinges) the trap is due to be set in Corn Buck this weekend.