Squirrel - The Other White Meat

Benjamin finished zeroing the sights on his new Ruger pellet rifle and has it pretty close.  We still need to fine tune it, but he told me that he thought it was close enough to go try to begin thinning out the squirrel population on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  The squirrels eat a lot of the pecans before we get to them, and well, that's got to stop.

The Ruger BlackHawk Elite .177 Pellet Rifle with Scope

Benjamin has a tin of 500 pellets of which the inventory is probably down to about 400 pellets by now.  Most of those were expended trying to sight in the rifle.  As with many items you get, the directions weren't great.  Turns out I mounted the scope with the elevation and windage adjustments in the wrong location and this made sighting the rifle akin to a dog chasing his tail.  We never could get it right. When I finally discovered my folly, Benjamin zeroed the rifle scope in no time flat by himself.  He's a sharp cookie (and a sharpshooter).

Ammo

So I'm at the office yesterday, reviewing contracts, drafting amendments and other such things in my "real job," and I get a text with the picture below and language:  "Dad, look what I killed with my new pellet rifle!"

The Tree Rat

He killed a big old bushy tail squirrel!  When I got home it was dark.  We got the lantern and headed out to the stump in the pasture.  There's no way Tricia was going to allow us to skin and gut a squirrel in her kitchen!  Skinning a squirrel is pretty easy.  You step on the back legs, cut through the base of the tail and skin a little way back. Then you step on the skin attached to the tail and pull.  All the skin will come off and end up around the squirrel's head.  Go ahead and pull the skin around his arms When you get to this point, pull the skin from his back legs until its around his ankles.  Now cut off his head and all four feet.

Skinning Benjamin's kill

Next, break the pelvis and insert your knife, making sure not to puncture any of his entrails.  Make an incision from his bottom all the way to his neck and completely open him up.  Take your fingers and starting at the windpipe, pull all the way down, removing heart, lungs, liver, and guts.  What you have left... is supper!

The Other White Meat

Benjamin saw many other squirrels, so this is just the beginning.  He'll skin his own from now on. He learned a good lesson with his gun.  How to zero a scope.  How to kill an animal.  How to process the kill.  He also learned gun safety and how to provide for yourself if the grocery store inventory was not there (although I've never seen squirrel meat at the Piggly Wiggly).

The following picture made me laugh.  We compost all the guts and put them back into the garden to fertilize the crops, Looking at the tail reminded me that when growing up, the day squirrel season opened, you would hang the squirrel tails from the antenna of your truck and drive around.  I can't say that I've seen that lately!

Squirrel Tail

Come to think of it, I haven't even seen trucks with external antennas anymore.  I think they're all embedded in the windshield now.  I guess Benjamin will have to hang this one from the handlebars of his scooter.