Bush Tucker

Lord knows we have enough wildlife here that we need never eat meat from the butcher or supermarket again.  I don’t know why it’s taken us so long to sample Bush Tucker.

Last year we shot a goanna – a big one- that saw us as a food source and made the daily trek into the chook house for his eggs.  As Ben collects the eggs and a confrontation between the two of them was going to end in tears and skin tears, he obviously had to go.  It was the first time I saw my husband with his gun . . . he looked so comfortable with it, so at home with it, sure steady . . . safe.  He’s a good shot, my man, more reason to love him so.

That goanna made a run and swim for it and Ged got him as he clambered out of the river on a rock.  Wwoofer Carl and I rowed over to get him but wimped out of hauling him out and cooking him.  This year Ged and the Wwoofers had no such qualms, Ged shot a goanna out of the Jacaranda tree and  it went straight on the new barbie in its skin and there was much excitement at the prospect of Bush Tucker for supper.

Apparently they are a protected species.  God knows why there are plenty of them around here.  We have a simple rule at Avalon, all the wildlife are safe from us as long as they don’t interfere with our lives and business.  If they stay away they are safe.  We are not the sort of people to shoot a snake on sight.  But a goanna stealing my eggs, scaring my baby chicks, wrestling with Josephine in her nesting box, eating the baby ducklings – yup, that has to go!

When last year’s goanna ate Josephine’s baby I literally felt that biblical ‘an eye for an eye’ feeling.  A rage that only the justice of a death for a death would appease.  My duckling was gone, my duck was suffering, tears were shed by adults and child alike and vengeance was mine.  I did feel regret for the goanna’s wasted death (but only because we didn’t eat it!) but once he was killed my rage at our loss was gone.

Law abiding city folk will be shocked at our lawlessness.  But the law of the jungle, the law of the land, Bush Law is different.  We are wilder because we know nature, we see life and death in every day, we know the cycles and the rhythms of the seasons.  We respect life, we cherish it, and to me it is better to shoot a goanna for stealing and eat it, than it is to buy nameless meat at Coles or Woolworths with no thought to where it came from, how it lived, how it died.

These are far from the killing fields as I don’t like blood shed at Avalon, but if my boys are to eat meat I would rather they knew its name.

Duck & Tooth Fairy MIA

We have a duck MIA – presumed dead.  I heard a terrific squawking one afternoon from the region of the awning but just thought one of the chooks was laying an egg with much ado.  The next day I found a python snoozing in my feed shed and presumed he was the culprit (even though he didn’t have the distended belly you would expect if he was mid-duck digestion) so Ged grabbed him and put him in a sack (after peeling him off his wrist coil by ever tightening coil) and I drove him over to Angle Creek where I let him go, on the way to my daily constitutional.

It was either him or the Goanna . . . but then there were two . . .
Benjamin’s getting pretty good at his routine now and it’s only really the teething days which throw us for a loop.  He has been drooling for ages and gnawing on his fingers, our fingers, Giraffey and anything else he can find, but then some days he is obviously in pain and I am on my knees by the end of the day begging the tooth fairy to get a bloody wriggle on!
My theory is that she can’t find us and Santa (who knows our address) is on holiday during the whole of January and February (resting after his round the world marathon) so we will have to wait until March when she can get in touch with him again and get the map co-ordinates!  That’s what I tell Benjamin anyway . . . .
There are a few things that always make him smile – blowing raspberries on his belly, singing to him (anything – he’s not fussy!) but ‘Benjamin Love has a Farm Ee I ee I o’ is a favourite, Daddy tickling him in the bath, bathtime, Mama’s boobies (he’s such a BOY!), The Gruffalo (thank you Sally, what a BRILLIANT book) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (inspired by Shirley’s foray into FAO Schwarz for him) and the Boy in the Mirror who he loves . . .