On country roads, it is not uncommon to see roadkill. Plenty of wallabies in these parts. Sometimes an echidna, or a bandicoot or bush rat. Not often do we see wombats, and there aren’t many kangaroos around. At night, coming up our driveway, you do have to drive slowly and carefully, because as sure as eggs are eggs, if a wallaby is close by and it sees the beam of your headlights, it will jump head-long into it. The beam that is. You have to be prepared to break, quickly. Thankfully I haven’t hit one yet.

On the other hand, as horrible as it sounds, we try to hit the rabbits. They are such a menace and so destructive. Don’t be deceived by their cute, cottontail looks. But they are evasive and fast, and they dart away. The wallabies by comparison seem clumsy and drugged by the headlights.

In the city, roadkill tends to be of a different nature. A few months ago, when Hubs was in Sydney for work, he happened across some road kill, lying abandoned on the side the road, in amongst a pile of other pre-loved, no-longer-wanted items. He bundled it up into the tray of the ute and brought it home with him. It looked like this:

I surveyed it curiously, unsure if we could resuscitate it. Was it even worth trying to rescue? While I held some hope, I was not convinced. It was so 1990’s.

Nonetheless, Hubs persevered. The country does amazing things to a man. We have been married for 19 years, and together for 25, and I’d have to say for the vast majority of that time, I would have described Hubs as a non-handy kind of guy. He is good at many things. But handy-work and do-it-yourself type projects have not been his strong points. The country makes you want to be self-sufficient though. We’re surrounded by very clever, creative, handy, do-it-yourself people. And it makes you want to step up.

So step up Hubs did. Not long after rescuing the road kill, some good friends came to stay for the weekend. In his past life, Richie was a carpenter so his skills and instruction were just what we needed. Together, Hubs and Richie worked away on this little find and breathed new life into it. They visited our local hardware store, purchased replacement feet, timber beading, a small tub of paint and some wire gauze. They carefully pulled apart, put back together, hammered, sanded and painted. Hubs working under the watchful, guiding eye of Richie. He listened and he learned.

And this is what they did:

I love it. And it now holds pride of place in our hallway.

It turns out, one man’s trash can indeed be another man’s treasure. And some roadkill is definitely worth saving.