Monday, February 9, 2009

Hog Heaven

Today's editorial in The Dallas Morning News made me giggle. Called "Feral Hog Wild", it calls for a state solution to the feral hog problem in Texas, using helicopters and turning it into a state subsidized mini-industry for hunters. No doubt a serious problem for our rural neighbors with an estimated 2 million of the beasties digging and rooting and eating - everything.

I've got a cheaper solution - four chefs with guns and 50 pounds of strawberry jello-soaked corn.

A few weeks ago, hubby and some buddies went out to the "Garvin East Texas ranchette" for a chef's retreat/fishing trip. They didn't bring back any fish, it's catch-and-release only at the lake they fished, but they awoke to almost two dozen wild boar rooting in the field next to the house. An idea was born.

So sometime this week the boys are heading back east, with guns and jello-corn. Richard Chamberlain probably has the most experience, he's been hunting feral pigs down in the Victoria area for years. Hubby, he grew up deer hunting in Michigan, how different could hogs be? Except he mostly used a bow back then. He's borrowed a gun (or rifle, or whatever a "thirty-aught-sixty" is) from our brother-in-law, and spent some time at the shooting range practicing and taking a gun safety class. His eyesight is amazing - he can spot a trooper on the highway three hills away.

The boys know how to dress and butcher the meat - sausage for anyone?

Pictured above, Chef Richard Chamberlain and his son Stephen on a hunting trip in 2008.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

1: it's a thirty-aught-SIX
2: when speaking about guns, you must mention the Boy

Anonymous said...

You'll shoot your eye out.