Rabbit Hunting Essay

Today I am writing a six-paragraph narrative essay that is based on the paragraph that I wrote in my post yesterday. It is about hunting rabbits with my Dad and brother. Notice that the essay has a lot more detail than the paragraph.

                                            Family Rabbit Hunting

     Have you ever eaten rabbit meat?  Have you ever hunted the rabbit that you ate?  I have done both. When I was a kid we used to live on a farm in southern Colorado, near Durango. We had quite a few acres of farm land behind the house and then more land with cedar trees and a little lake. (1) I  loved to hunt rabbits with my Dad and brother, Harold, when I was a kid,  because we hunted together as a team and each of us had a special role on the team.

     (2) So here is how it always began, with my Dad, my brother and I going hunting in the woods behind our house. We would start out walking next to each other with my Dad in the middle with his rifle. My Dad had a small .22 caliber rifle, which was good for shooting rabbits, squirrels and other small animals. We enjoyed being out there together and talked, but only in whispers so we wouldn't scare the rabbits until we got close to them.

     (3) Harold had the first job, which was to spot a rabbit and point at it so my Dad could see where it was. We called Harold "Eagle Eye" because he was so good at this. Usually, not long after we started walking, a cottontail rabbit would jump out of a bush in front of us,  about 50 yards way,  and start running like crazy, jumping high in the air with each bound.

     (4) Then, my Dad would shoot the rabbit with his rifle. My Dad was a good shot and would usually hit the rabbit on the first shot, sometimes in midair. It's not easy to hit a running rabbit over 50 yards away. The rabbit would fall to the ground, twitch and wiggle around for a little and then lie still. My Dad had finished his part of the job, and he would look over at me. That was my signal to take action.

     (5) Finally, it was my turn to run out and grab the dead rabbit and then we would all head home, where my Mom would clean and roast the rabbit for dinner. My Mom would usually complain when she saw us coming with the bloody rabbit and tell us not to come in the house with it.  As she complained she would smile a little; she knew we were just being boys and having fun. She also knew that we liked to eat roasted rabbit, and so did she. So she would grab the rabbit, cut off its head, skin it, and clean out the insides in less than a minute. Then she washed it off good with the hose and took it into the house and roasted it in the oven, and we'd have roasted rabbit for dinner. It was one of our favorite dinners.

     (6) In conclusion, family rabbit hunting was fun and a good way for me to learn the importance of teamwork at a young age. I learned that with a lot of things in life a team can get a job done easier than a single person. We had a spotter, a shooter, and a retriever, and somehow it seemed like none of us could have done it alone. I got my own rifle when I was a little older and would go rabbit hunting by myself, but it was never as fun as going with my Dad and brother, bringing the rabbit home for dinner.