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Monday, October 17, 2011

Hunting Trophies

When living in France, I used to be fascinated by the hunting trophies that hung down off the walls of living rooms. You know, those deer with antlers... wild boar. They hang down off the walls, usually from above the fireplace and stare emptily at you with their glass eyes. People in rural France have long depended on hunting game to supplement their diet. At some points in history, eating wild game was all that kept peasant families alive.

Well... at home, we're collecting trophies too. And Milo eats them with relish. In addition to eating like a human, Milo also eats like a bat. A few weeks ago, we hunted and killed more than 100 mosquitoes by hand. A friend who had just toured my new house and was excited and raving about its beauty, suddenly slumped her shoulders and looked at me with eyes brimming with pity, when I told her about our feat. "Gee... I don't envy you" she said.

Sigh! By now, I have come to accept this as part of being close to nature. Where we stay is as close to kampong as one can get in Singapore, so I suppose we just gotta live with these tiny bloodsuckers. Variously, we have collected a sonic device that confuses the mosquitoes with sonar... a mosquito trap that emits warmth and carbon dioxide... quite a number of odourless Baygon thingamajigs... and plentiful stores of mosquito coils. If we close the doors shortly before dusk, we have no problems because those mosquitoes that do get into the house are confused by a cacophony of sound and chemical distractions. Some days, we wake up in the mornings to see a light dusting of mosquitoes on the tiled floor.

Us humans haven't been bitten in quite a while.

Milo however, was beginning to look anaemic. He stays outside in the backyard where sound and chemicals are dispersed. Despite allocating to his sole use the carbon dioxide mosquito trap and burning two mosquito coils each night for him alone, I've noticed how mosquitoes settle onto his fur to feast. So, after 2 days of rains, the family headed out to hunt mosquitoes by hand. With 2 mosquito coils burning, we were hugely successful. The mosquitoes were groggy. A few of them were so full of Milo's blood that they could not fly. I am not exaggerating. I caught a few that hopped along the tiled floor carrying their heavy stomachs. For a while, I thought they were fleas. Many hid in plain sight on the chocolate brown walls so all we had to do was to play slap slap on the walls. Milo's job was to lick up the carcasses, his own blood and all. Clearly, he thought them delicious.

When it comes to hunting, males take things very seriously. The Husband was deadly quiet... intense and focused. He alone accounted for more than 50% of what was exterminated. And like those French fathers I knew from my youth, he was most assiduous in collecting his trophies for display. Milo wasn't allowed to eat his kills. Oh no! Instead, much of it went onto the various mosquito coil plates. And if there was any blood in the mosquito at all, that would be properly smeared on the plate for all to see.

I am so sorry that this is SUCH a disgusting post.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

so happy you're able to eradicate your mosquitoes this way...I hope Milo gets a monthly preventative for heartworms. Mosquitoes carry this parasite to our beloved K-9s

Petunia Lee said...

Theanne - Yup! He has heartworm protection. Thanks for caring!!

Malar said...

That's a lot of mosquitoes! I use electrical mosquito repellent here.
Poor Milo....

Petunia Lee said...

Malar - Yeah... poor Milo!!

Ivana said...

Good grief! Those are very fat mozzies!

Petunia Lee said...

Ivana - Eh non! Les plus gros ont été mangés par le chien. Miam! Miam!

Ivana said...

Degoutant! Ew!!!!