CAN’T BEAT ’EM? EAT ’EM!

We recently had the privilege of hosting our local branch of the Neighbourhood Watch group – life doesn’t get much more exciting than that around these here parts! These people are good jokers but I have to say that anyway as they are my neighbours and we all need to rub along together. We share the occasional item or piece of useful (or useless) advice, junk, information, news, gossip or jokes (but not much else). So imagine our surprise when we discovered that PET activists had managed to infiltrate our ranks without our knowledge! PET stands for Pest Eradication Team. They were seeking our support for the control of the increasing numbers of possums in our area.

A few decades ago in New Zealand we had 2 million people and 60 million sheep. In the UK there are 60 million people and 2 million sheep. Now, we have 4 million people, 4 million cows and 60 million possums (and a few disgruntled Democrats, I imagine). We are seriously outnumbered, folks, and the government needs our help or they will munch through this green and pleasant land. (The possums AND the government!)

My contribution to the cause will be to promote possum stew, as we need each Kiwi to prepare only 15 possum stews and we can get there! I call it MCC (“Michael’s Culinary Control”) and I wish to be remembered by posterity for it.

I once knew an extremely nice but poor young couple who lived in the remote hills not far from where we were doing our own “self-sufficiency” experiments. Forced unwillingly to live a vegetarian lifestyle, they occasionally managed to harvest some road kill, in the form of a possum dazzled by headlights and squashed by a passing vehicle. They considered it quite a treat! Michael Ibbotson, COOPERS BEACH