Cecile Poulin shared her story of her brother, Blaise, the Great Rabbit Hunter when he was about 16 years old. He often left for 1-2 days and nights to hunt with his rifle and trusty hunting dog. Blaise was a natural shot and would go out on foot, horse or later, on a small, used motorcycle. When Blaise was absent from the milking crew at 4 AM, Raoul knew that he was out, searching for meat to bring home again.
On this one hunting trip when he returned, being so tall and the kitchen doorframe so short (about 1930), he opened the kitchen door and his entire body filled the doorframe. He walked in, dropped his rifle against the kitchen wall, unlashed his leather hunting belt that contained dozens of punched holes, and in one smooth motion, hurled the belt onto the kitchen table.
“Ragout, mama” he said. “Stew, mother”. The belt had 22 rabbits attached to the hooks, each hook centered on each punched hole. Cecile had seen her brother return home with animals that he had trapped, but swears that this was the largest number of rabbits that Blaise had ever come home with.
Obviously, rabbit stew was one of Blaise’s favorites. Cecile said that it took very little time for Lucia to skin these puppies and get them into a stew.
Blaise, the master rabbit hunter of the Poulins