This essay, Bill and the ferret was first published in June 2012 shortly after I began my weekly essay writing routine. I hope you enjoy this story from my archive…
Okay I grew up in the country and we had lots of animals, what can I say? In fact, it might better be called a menagerie if you’d seen our acre block where we live. Of course, we had a black and white sheep dog named Rowdy. He was named after the 60’s TV star of Rawhide. Rowdy Yates, who by the was played by a young Clint Eastwood. We also had a myriad of cats of one color or another always mooching about as well as a rabbit (Bugs… super original I know). He was white except for his ears (one floppy and one regular) which were brown. We also had a host of birds – Rosella’s, a canary and a number of wild magpies that had been hurt and couldn’t fly so we fed them as well. One big happy pet family!
However, all these animals’ pale in comparison to our pet ferrets. Our ferrets like most people know are ornery at the best of times, with exceptionally sharp teeth and lightening quick reactions and reflexes. Any momentary lapse in concentration while either carrying or feeding one had dire consequences… most often you had two razor sharp teeth embedded into the closest body part and let me tell you from personal experience that it was painful beyond belief, having been bitten and nipped at least 25 times during my formative years.
We were poor and so we put our ferrets to work hunting rabbits; many an afternoon was spent out in the bush looking for rabbit warrens (multiple rabbit borough openings). The art to “rabbiting” as we called it, was locating a large warren, placing our nets that fit perfectly over each entrance then placing a ferret or two in boroughs either side of the warren and letting him loose to do their thing. Free and unencumbered by their carrying box, they were free to run the length of the boroughs chasing unsuspecting rabbits from their homes into our nets; where we would grab them and break their necks (did I say I lived in the bush where this is common practice?).
The best ferret story has to be the one my dad told me shortly before he died in 2011.
It was 1945 and his dad had recently died, and he was now the bread winner for the family at the ripe old age of 12 (his mum and three younger siblings); times were tough – it was the final year of the war with most of the able bodied men away fighting in the Pacific and so kids became the labour force around town.
Dad would use his ferrets to not only catch rabbits for the family for food but to also sell for a penny a pair to the local ice works who in turn sold them in great quantities to the Melbourne based meat wholesalers. Times were tough for everyone, and rabbit was an everyday staple for many in Australia at that time.
He and his best mate (“Snowy” Webb) were out in the horse and cart ferreting one afternoon out along Creek Parade at the western edge of town where the steep cliffs rise up from the narrow creek below. This part of town had been the heart of the gold mining area or “diggings” during the 1850’s (Gold was first discovered in Clunes in 1851 and triggered a gold rush of enormous proportions). At one point rumour has it that the town had swollen to over 30,000 people with 90 pubs…. yeah you do the math on that one… All well and good until the gold ran out in the late 1880’s, and by 1945 much of the town had been abandoned, so perfect for rabbits and other wild animals to take over and inhabit.
They came across, in dad’s words the “largest rabbit warren I’d ever seen” and so they set about placing nets over as many of the boroughs as they had nets for. When completed they only had a handful of nets left of the 100 that they had started with. Great – the stage was set to really clean up and catch the day’s quota in one fell swoop.
They each carefully took their ferrets from the carrying boxes and nodding to each other as the signal to place them into their respective boroughs. It shouldn’t be long now they thought as they congratulated themselves for finding the “mother of all warren’s”. After a couple of minutes of silence, they began to hear sounds of thumping and muffled noises coming from the holes… but still no rabbits. How perplexing?
Fifteen minutes went by – nothing. They agreed they should put in two more ferrets, hopefully that would smarten things up and get a result – after all this was the “mother of all warren’s”. Thirty minutes and still nothing had come out…. The boys were getting just a tad frustrated and annoyed by this stage.
Just as their hopes were beginning to fade about 20 yards to the right up on a small rise a rabbit came shooting out from under a large Boxthorn bush… Bugger they thought, we must have missed a hole, dad quickly grabbed another net and ran to the Boxthorn bush, but it was so thick he couldn’t see the hole clearly. Dad was pretty short, but wiry so Snowy encouraged him to get down on his stomach and slide under the bush and find the hole and get a net over it before they lost any more rabbits.
No worries thought dad and he went to ground and slithered under the sharply festooned bush. As he got under the bush he noticed the hole about 5 feet away by the base of the hedge. Sliding closer he heard a rabbit approaching fast and with no time to put a net over the hole or protect himself from the quickly exiting rabbit it ran full speed into the prostrate dad bouncing off his face. I’m not sure who was more surprised the now dazed rabbit or my battered father? Dad quickly regained his composure and gabbed the rabbit by the scruff of the neck and quickly broke it, pushing it behind him toward the opening from whence he’d come.
Dad was now focused on the job at hand, putting the net over the hole but as he slid closer to the hole what should appear out of the darkness but one of the ferrets. His two beady eyes illuminating the inside the borough as dad called softly to him hoping not to startle him too much. As the ferret exited the borough it was completely covered in blood, having I’m sure killed a number of rabbits on his spree inside the borough. I’m not sure what was going through the ferret’s mind at this point, whether he was he angry with dad, pissed off or just on a Charles Manson (chemical high) from killing the rabbits but he came nose to nose with dad and looking directly into dad’s eyes he opened his mouth slowly and took a large chomp directly into the meaty end of dad’s nose.
Dad’s squealing and quick backward retreat didn’t deter the ferret one bit; as it held on tightly to dad’s nose, blood beginning to seep from around the wound. As he exited backward and at speed from below the Boxthorn bush Snowy was concerned that dad had been bitten by a snake, but as dad turned with the ferret securely wedged right on the end of his nose. Snowy broke into uncontrollable laughter, and was literally rolling on the ground, tear streaming from his eyes as dad danced around trying to un-wedge the ferret from his nose without causing more damage. Not sure whether it was dad’s swearing or pleading with Snowy that finally brought him round to help but by this time the ferret had been biting on dads’ nose for a good two or three minutes with no respite.
One thing to know about ferrets is the combination of razor-sharp teeth combined with a powerful jaw make it almost impossible to pry their jaws open.
Snowy’s response was quick and unrelenting – he just grabbed the ferret by the hind legs and yanked as hard as he could. You guessed it, it ripped a large chunk of skin and flesh from the end of dad’s nose and that’s when the blood really began to pour…
It became Snowy’s favorite story to tell others – “did ever I tell you about Bill and the ferret?” As you can imagine the story became bigger and better with every telling, but Snowy’s best exhibit was the scar on dad’s nose as proof of their misadventure.
I remember how dad’s eyes sparkled as he told me that story, and how he laughed out loud at Snowy’s response to his predicament.
I love that story dad – thanks for telling me!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s story.
Ciao
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