To Air is Humane

“It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a squirrel. You take away all that squirrel has got, and all he’s ever going to have.”  William Munny from Missouri, 1880 (paraphrase)

As I’ve said before, I grew up killing and eating squirrels. The place where I took the most was in old hog barn on the farm where we used to store corn in the loft. I’d quietly stalk up the stairs with my six-gun in hand, and usually right as I stepped into the loft one of possibly several squirrels would see me and make like lightning for an opening to get out of the loft while I fired away. After a flurry of gunfire the loft would once again fall quiet, and I’d have one or two squirrels to show for it. It had to be one of the most exciting single-action .22 handgun shooting experiences available anywhere in North America, and it was right there on my farm, just a short three-wheeler ride away. And I don’t think the old hog barn was much worse for wear from it. The pistol didn’t make very big holes in anything.  

This past year I’ve been hunting squirrels with an air rifle. The experience is less like a Clint Eastwood movie, and more like that sniper movie starring Tom Berenger. I usually tend more toward the maximum end of the spectrum on firepower, but the .22 caliber pellet fired from the Beeman puts a squirrel away just fine, so long as you make the shot in the upper back half of the cranium. And sometimes the relatively silent nature of the air rifle is important. To quote Forrest Gump, “That's all I have to say about that.” (I apologize that all of my pop-culture references seem to end in the early 1990s. I’ve been kind of busy since then.)

So the Beeman has yielded an adequate supply of squirrels for us, and unlike my less-than-precise six-gun shooting, all of the meat is entirely intact (unless you eat the brains, which we don’t.) At least it’s intact until I clean them, then it gets occasionally cut, and frequently fuzzy. I’m getting better at cleaning squirrels without taking forever and making a mess of them, but I’m far from proficient.

Search Youtube for squirrel cleaning videos, and you’ll find more than you will want to watch. Guys that are an old hand will show you how to simply “unzip them out of their little jackets.” Don’t be fooled, these guys are masters. I’d let them perform surgery on me if I needed it, so long as they promised to wash their hands first.

We’ve only got a couple of recipes left, and one of them is for squirrel. All four of us are looking forward to it.