Rite of Passage.

For the record, I hate hunting. I hate hurting animals.

The only animal that I know I could kill without batting an eyelash would be a mink...and still.

If I could find a vegetable that tastes like chicken or fish I'd become a vegetarian.

But alas! I love chicken and fish too much to become, as my hubby would say, oneofthose.

The reason I raise my own meat is so I can make sure the animal had a nice, happy, healthy life before it hit my plate. 

None of this factory farm crap for us. 

So that's why I'm not into hunting.

Honestly there is NO reason for it.

We have all the meat we need in our freezer and if not...

that's why God invented super markets!

Dave used to hunt when I first met him.

He says he stopped because he just stopped liking it.

Really I think it's because I bugged the living heck out of him and made him feel guilty.

Like I told him one day, "How would you like someone stalking you all the time, just because you look good."

Ok, maybe that's not a good metaphor.

But anyway. Let those poor deer, rabbits and whatever else is in the woods, live their lives without us hassling them.

Then Jamie came along...and Duck Dynasty.

Thanks Phil!

For the longest time Jamie was in my court. There was no way he'd ever think about hurting an animal.

Then this year it started.

Jamie - Mom! I think I want to start hunting.

Me - What?!

Jamie - Yea, it looks like fun. The kids talk about it at school and they go deer hunting with their dads.

Me - Taking an innocent animals life looks like fun!!!!!Are you kidding me!?

Jamie - Well not like fun, but you know.

Lisa -  No, I don't know! If your friends start doing drugs or jump off a cliff are you going to do it to cause it looks like "FUN"! (By this time I could see my mother in this conversation also...hmmm about 30+ years ago)

Jamie - No! I know drugs are wrong mom. And jumping off a cliff would hurt..

Well you get the drift of this conversation.  I was sure I was raising a mini Jeffrey Dalmer.

Then I decided to consult a professional.(This professional has many degrees with lots of PHDs behind his name. I just won't name him.)

He said that hunting wasn't a bad idea. That actually the problem with today's young boys was that they didn't do good old fashioned dangerous sports enough and we end up with wimpy boys that play video games of hunting and killing and don't see the real life consequences of those killings.

He said that for a young boy to grow up "normal" and I use that term loosely, he had to do sports that would give him a one in a thousand chance of getting seriously hurt.

Hmmm...I'm not so keen on that philosophy, but I bended.

So we've enrolled Jamie into a firearms safety course and a hunter safety course.

For the time being he can use a pellet gun and go trapping rabbits.

A friend of ours gave him a live trap. Snares are not good around here with all the family cats around.

Dave has showed him what the rabbit tracks look like and where to go.

So my son is now a rabbit trapper.

The first night he set the trap and got a rabbit!!!

He killed it humanely with his pellet gun and then Dave showed him how to dress it.

After they were done, Jamie comes in the house and says," I think I have to sit down. I don't feel so good."

Tee hee.

That too will eventually pass. He's set the trap many times after and so far nothing. Phew!

But I was actually proud of him. I mean how could I not be.

I had never seen him so proud of himself in my life!

 He cooked it that day and ate it.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa