Repel a cat - the forums wisedom

[Bibs]

Cat's used to shit all over my back lawn. There was about half a dozen used to use my garden as a toilet, whilst leaving their owners with pleasant places to sit and barbecue of an evening in their own gardens.

I tried various sprays and stuff (all at my expense), and soaking the little b@stards with a hosepipe, but in the end was forced to block pave the entire back garden just so I could use my garden without ending up with foul smelling shite between my toes.

I cant stand them. I'd have shot them if it was legal. Cat's dont really like people, they just see them as a meal ticket. Other than that, they dont give a monkeys what happens to you. A dog, however, is loyal and will defend you to the death.

Cats = worthless pain in the ar$e.

What happened to unconditional love???
Do you have to get something back to justify giving???

I have 2 cats - 1 male who is more like a dog than you'll ever know. Follows me round, greets me at the door an not for food either. The female well she just is. Kills everythin in sight, demands attention, demands to be let in / out / fed.

Love um both for the personalities they are an not what I get from them.

[BioHazard]

Bunny business

• Buzz up!
• Digg it

• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
• The Guardian, Saturday 20 October 2007
• Article history

Wild bunnies like these have almost no fat. Photograph: Neil Mcintyre/Getty

If I described to you a meat that was low in fat, delicate in flavour and hugely versatile, would you be interested? If I added that it was inexpensive, usually sourced very locally, and subject to none of the serious welfare concerns that attach to so much of the flesh we eat, would I have closed the deal? Such a meat certainly does exist - in abundant supply. But very few of us eat it.
I'm talking about wild rabbit. And I really rate it. Portioned, on the bone, it's an excellent meat for stews or casseroles. Boneless and trimmed, it makes a nifty stir-fry. And minced, well-seasoned and mixed with a bit of good fatty sausagemeat, it can be pressed into service as a fantastic burger, too.
So why does rabbit remain such a marginal makeweight in our meat-hungry diet? No doubt "fluffy bunny syndrome" is a factor. Greetings cards, soft toys and children's wallpaper repackage the rabbit as the cutest and cuddliest of all our native fauna. But that's not the full story. Gambolling lambs and fluffy chicks are cartoonified and anthropomorphised as petting toys in much the same way, and we don't seem to have too much trouble munching our way through a few million of them every week.
I think the problem is mainly that rabbit is wild and it's a long time - centuries - since any wild meat was treated as a staple (except in times of hardship and war). Increasingly, our culture (or at least a great swath of it) is comfortable only with food that is designed and controlled, from start to finish, by the hand of man. For many, the higher the level of adulteration and processing, the higher the level of trust placed in the food.
For others of us, the opposite is the case. With meat, in particular, backwards is forwards, and the less it has been interfered with, both during its life and after its death, the better. There could hardly be a better symbol of this retro yearning for more natural meat than the grass-grazing, veg-nibbling rabbit.
This is the best time of year to get your hands on a couple of wild "harvest" rabbits. Those shot now are likely to be young animals, born in the spring, and nice and plump from a summer of nibbling. Any good butcher can get you a rabbit or two - though a couple of days' notice might be helpful.
Farmed rabbit, by the way, is a very different proposition, and one I avoid. A lot of it is raised - mainly on the continent - in conditions little better than those for the average battery chicken. As for its flavour, well, in my experience it just doesn't have any. And the very idea of farming rabbit for food seems nonsensical. God knows, there's no shortage of the bobtailed blighters running about the countryside.
Why not let them enjoy a life of hopping about, having a lot of sex and nibbling the tops off my carrot plants before dispatching a few with a swift, sure shot, and doing them justice in a slow-simmered, cidery stew?
Rabbit ragł

Ragł is a rich meat sauce for pasta, usually cooked long and slow. In this case, the sauce itself is pretty quick to put together, but the rabbit requires a good, long simmer to make it super-tender. Serves two.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 rabbit, jointed
4 rashers streaky bacon, diced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stems celery, roughly chopped
1 onion, peeled and halved ...#8805;
2 bay leaves
A few black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1kg tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and roughly chopped (or a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes)
Salt and ground black pepper
½ glass white wine
1 knob butter
250g pappardelle or tagliatelle
Extra-virgin olive oil, to serve
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large pan over a medium-high heat. Add the rabbit pieces and brown all over. Add the bacon, carrot, celery and onion, and let them take a little colour. Add a bay leaf, the peppercorns and enough water just to cover everything. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for an hour and a half to two hours, or until the rabbit meat is falling off the bone.
Meanwhile, make a simple tomato sauce. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two, without browning, then add the tomatoes and a bay leaf. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the tomatoes are very soft and pulpy, and the mixture is thick. Remove the bay. If you like, blitz the sauce in a blender to get a smooth consistency, but it's not essential. Taste, season and set aside.
Take the meat out of the stock. Strain the stock, discard the veg, then pour into a wide pan. Add the wine, bring to the boil and boil until the liquid has reduced to about 200ml.
Pull all the rabbit meat off the bones, in shreds. Combine the sauce with the reduced stock and add the meat. Grind in lots of pepper and add a knob of butter. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salted water until al dente, then drain. Transfer to two warmed dishes and spoon the ragł on top. Trickle over a little extra-virgin olive oil, add a good grinding of black pepper and serve.
Rabbit, leek and cider stew

Wild bunny has almost no fat, so add some while cooking. Slow-cooking with a bit of pork belly is a good bet, as it renders the meat beautifully tender and well lubricated. A slosh of cream won't hurt, either. Serves four to six.
1 tbsp olive oil
250g salted pork belly (or pancetta), cut into chunky cubes
2 rabbits, skinned and jointed
3-4 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
35g butter
3 big leeks, trimmed and sliced thin
500ml cider
284ml carton double cream
1 large sprig fresh thyme
Salt and ground black pepper
1 good tbsp parsley, chopped
Heat the oil in a big pan over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook until well browned. Scoop out the meat, leaving behind some rendered fat, and set aside. Toss the rabbit lightly in seasoned flour, add to the pan, brown all over, then turn off the heat.
Heat the butter in a separate pan and add the leeks. Sweat gently until soft and silky. Add to the rabbit, along with the browned pork, cider, cream and thyme. Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for one to one and a half hours, until the meat is very tender. Season to taste and finish with a generous sprinkling of parsley. Serve with potatoes - mashed or sautéed.
Bunny burgers
Makes 10 burgers.
1 medium onion, finely chopped
A little oil
1kg rabbit meat, minced
250g sausagemeat or minced belly pork
About 1 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped - I use marjoram, thyme, sage and rosemary
Salt and ground black pepper
Gently cook the onion in oil for a few minutes until softened, then set aside to cool. Meanwhile, use your hands to mix together the rabbit, sausagemeat and herbs, then mix in the onion and seasoning. Shape into 10 patties not more than 2cm thick, wrap in clingfilm and chill until ready to cook.
Cook the burgers on a barbecue or in a lightly oiled heavy frying pan for three to four minutes on each side. Serve in buns with a bit of fresh salad and either a squirt of good tomato ketchup or some mayonnaise spiked with English mustard. ·

[Bibs]

Nowt wrong with that

[fonecrusher1]

Take cats out of the equation & your neighbourhood would become infested with rats & mice.

[BioHazard]

Jack russels are good for rats ...........well the death of .....


SQUEEK

[fonecrusher1]

I tasted rabbit pie once, it was lovely.

[Albannach]

Jack russels are good for rats ...........well the death of .....

Do they poison them?

[Apache]

Roast rabbit and chips. MMmmmmm...

[Bibs]

Roast rabbit and chips. MMmmmmm...

Don't get side tracked by your tummy

[BUSHWHACKER]

I tasted rabbit pie once, it was lovely.

Tastes like cat.

[Bibs]

Tastes like cat.

Ha ha ha love the way you sneak in with your one liners

[fonecrusher1]

Tastes like cat.

Nope, tasted more like dog. Poodle to be exact.

[BUSHWHACKER]

Nope, tasted more like dog. Poodle to be exact.

I was staying on topic.

[meooo]

Go along to your local zoo, get a sack full of lion/tiger poo (they need to get rid of it somewhere) and plaster your car with it....it'll Cover up the scratches, and look like you off-road in your BM and the cats wont go near it

And its environmentally sound too

And no-one will park remotely close to you in supermarket car-parks, so thats a winner all round