Jenny's Blog

Shootin' Rabbits

Last weekend when we were in Queenstown we had rabbit for dinner.  We had been driving into town when a large rabbit (not a bunny- a rabbit) darted in front of our car.  We missed it but the driver behind us ran it right over.  Jordan, a friend of mine, is all about not wasting any type of food and graciously taking any free food available (we had picked apples and chestnuts off road-side trees and watercress from the side of a river during the trip as well).  Chris, the friend Jordan had invited to join us on the trip regularly hunts and eats rabbit.  You see where this is going.

We turned around, Chris snapped the suffering rabbits neck, we bagged it and took it to a nearby park where he taught us the process of skinning, gutting, and cleaning a rabbit (unfortunately just as a group of school kids was meandering about.  Oops).  Just a reminder- I am not crazy, but the whole process was sssoooo cool!  I’ve seen goats slaughtered and prepared for cooking, chicken and fish, but I’ve never been thoroughly involved in the process from beginning to end.  By the end of this all of our hands were covered in blood and we had huge sh**-eating grins on our faces.  There’s a high you experience when you do something survivalist, innate, an act that’s been sustaining life through the course of time.  In the States we’re so removed from the process of acquiring our own food.  I probably sound like some panzie to those people out there that do this on a regular basis (quite a few Kiwis actually), but it felt so good to get back that part of what being human and a member of the food chain is all about. 

That afternoon we drove up an old miner road snaking around the rolls of the Remarkable mountain range with sheer cliffs on either side.  Hanging out the windows of the car during all of this was quite an exhilarating experience.  The view was spectacular and our campsite was the perfect place to start a fire and roast our rabbit.  It was delicious- tasted like a mix between chicken and turkey, and oh-so juicy.  I enjoyed it so immensely that Chris offered to take me rabbit hunting.  Of course I jumped on the offer. 

Yesterday he took me to his grandparent’s farm where I shot a real gun for the first time.  Not to toot my own horn but I have pretty good aim.  Apparently years of shooting my little brothers with airsoft guns has paid off.  After getting comfortable with the gun we stalked for over an hour through the hills.  Even though they’re a pest and I’ve never not seen a rabbit out in a pasture, we didn’t see a single one.  Chris claimed it was bad luck, and with mine of late that would make sense, but it could also be that some force of nature knew that I just wasn’t ready yet to shoot at a live thing.  I loved every bit of all of the learning before- how to skin the rabbit, gut it, cook it, and now shoot a gun, tread lightly and belly crawl while stalking what we thought was a bunny-turned-grass clump, and even pretend to fend off a pursuing line of zombies to practice quick reloading speeds, but what if I don’t aim perfectly and I put the thing through a lot of pain before Chris can finish it off?  Maybe a couple more goes and I’ll be ready to help the fight against one of New Zealand’s greatest pests, but for now I’m happy shooting at invisible zombies.      

Three days lacking luck

Luck is not indefinite, but it doesn’t have an expiration date either.  It’s rather like a cat- just coming in and out of the house as it pleases, ignoring you some times and striding onto your keyboard the next.  As you try to type it leaves its own words on your story and pays no mind to whether or not you want to pet it, it just thinks it owns the place.  And it does.  Just as luck does.  When it comes to you, you must soak up all of the nice time you have with it because who knows how long it’ll take for it to plop into your lap again?  But eventually it will.  That’s just what I keep telling myself.  Life has its ups and downs.  My Easter holiday was amazing and such a necessary peak to summit that kept me high for a week after, but since then my luck has waned. 

I had the worst day I’ve had in a really long time.  It shouldn’t have been a downer- I should have been on cloud nine.  I had just returned from a three-day weekend fiasco traveling through southern New Zealand with three friends.  We had gone through Queenstown where we did some amazing camping and rabbit roasting in the Remarkables mountain range, visited Arrowtown for their Autumn Festival, and saw Milford Sound in a glorious state of down poor (something I hadn’t seen while previously there and man was it great to experience it in both rain and shine!), but the dynamics of the trip had made our adventure less than perfect.  A couple days before we left I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to organize everybody and everything, including the car we were renting, finding the boys a tent, and making sure I had enough food to make it through the weekend.  No one said thanks for the hoops I jumped through and no one else brought their own food; everyone else expected we’d share food- aka I’d be helping pay for food items I don’t eat and for the boys’ larger portions.  (If you know me you know that I’m very particular about my food.)  Not to mention three of four of us are head strong independent types and so we spent the weekend tip -toeing around and side-stepping one another.  By the last day we had wiggled out our working dynamic, but by that point I was in need of some essential alone time. 

I had also learned too much about myself and how I feel about a friend.  Jordan is an amazing young man.  I’ve never met someone so interesting, so energized, so curious, and so knowledgeable.  He literally approaches every thing he does in life with the mentality that there’s no other option than to give 100%, and he gives 115%.  For all of these reasons when I first met him I was attracted to him.  After spending some time with him, that attraction waned for the sole purpose that I felt that he was too good for me.  I’ve never felt that way before, and I’m not saying that because I think I’m some great catch, I’m not, but I just felt that he deserved someone as amazing as him.  After this trip I not only wasn’t interested in him anymore, but I actually found myself not wanting to be around him period. 

When I’m around him I feel on edge, scrutinized, dumb, lazy and just overall bad about myself.  The worst thing is that he’s not doing anything to make me feel this way but be his awesome self- I’m doing it to me.  I’m in my head.  I’m forcing out these insecurities and scrutinizing my every move.  I learned that I’m not as confident and comfortable with myself as I thought I was, and if you’ve ever met me, I bet you find that hard to believe.  For the most part I love who I am, have accepted it and approach the world with the thinking that you can’t win ‘em all, if they don’t like it they can leave.  Or, from one of my favorite authors:  “Be who you are and say what you feel because those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind.”    Thank you Dr. Seuss.  The worst part of it was that I was having bad thoughts about someone, not because they deserved them, but because I was weak- I deserve them.  Learning not-so-nice things about yourself is hard and I am still trying to work out just how far and deep these issues run in me.  Everything happens for a reason and I’ll probably come out a better person after I figure it all out. 

But still I arrived home in a funk.  It was an amazing trip as far as activities and scenes go, but the emotional euphoria was lacking- or what we know as everything going just right- luck.  People say we make our own luck, and I think in a way we do, but I think it’s also a combination of circumstance, hormones (yes, if they’re raging like a two year old in a tantrum they are hard to ignore) and whether or not it wants to be made.  No matter.  These moments are what clichés are for:  What goes up must come down; Valleys make peaks beautiful but you can’t stay on the top of the mountain forever- food grows in valleys (I’m guessing food is synonymous with character here); Bad times make us appreciate the good; This too shall pass; It’s not the good times that reveal our true selves to us but the bad; etc.  Tomorrow the sun will rise again and I’ll have a chance at a better day and to be a better person.  Lucky me. :D

Alexandra

Cromwell

Road to Queenstown

Fresh water in New Zealand is so aqua because of the minerals in the rock that leech into it.  I tried very hard on this trip to capture pictures that accurately represent the shock I get every time I see it.  Don't know if I can ever do it justice. 

Following an old miner's road back to the Shotover River.

Our view in the morning.

Exploring along the river in the morning was a cumulation of finding beautiful little berries, fascinating rock formations, and greenstone.

 

Chris and a very cool old dredge from the mining days.  It's been here so long that trees are growing out of it.

At the Arrowtown Autumn Festival Jordan AND Chris were chosen to take part in this mime's antics.

One can never complain about rainbows...

Fiordland in a down poor that shocked even the people that work in the area.



If you look closely in the bottom right hand corner you can see the small form of crazy-ass Jordan leaping towards the wall of rock and water.  He took no mind of the sign just outside the car warning against falling rock, ice, and water surges.