I grew up on a farm where “store bought” was pretty scarce.
Thanksgiving Day was also hog butchering day.
[dunno why]
All these years I still don’t care for market meat, overmuch.
It tastes..I dunno...anemic or something.
Don’t get me started on coons.
The dumb ass on the hill was feeding dozens of stray cats and the 20 lb bags of cat food put out _every day_ drew everything in.
Thanks to his “kindness” we got a rabies endemic and I got rabies shots after 3 of them attacked my dogs.
[yeah, so a 9mm is overkill]
Every summer we’d have at least 3 of them show up in the yard or lane and get shot for their trouble but last year was the first time 3 showed up all at once.
I’m still messed up from the shots.
Everything aches like I’ve got polio or something.
Stupid bleeding heart, city slicking neighbor.
>:-[
We have lots of wild game here (except last years 100 year drought damaged the population).
But racoons are not “game”. I don’t know anyone foolish enough to eat them.
The “city hunters” are a big attraction to our area. Our pasture land is too small to be concerned about renting the hunting rights. That is for our family and friends.
When I was young there were very few deer, a few turkey, lots of dove, quite a few quail and an occasional wild hog. (the hogs have absolutely overrun us now) in the area. As the farms got larger and the population living in the country shrank the game increased.
Now there are many deer, lots of turkey, lots of dove (some species stay all year here), quail are rare this year because of drought.
My wife is one of those “city folks”, she thinks it is not food if it does not come from the grocery store. That has modified a bit since the 2 summers that we stayed at night with my grandmother (she had heart attack at 96 and we cared for her for over a year). Wife learned to appreciate fresh veggies.