What's with the Squirrels?

Mom badly injured her hamstring.  She slipped in the wet grass, did a split, and wrecked her leg. No surgery needed, but major recovery in store for her. That's her story. The short story.

BUT what I found out was this:
Dad was shooting squirrels off the birdfeeder from the second story bedroom window. He hit one, but didn't kill it and it was flopping around in the yard, half its head missing. Mom was like, "I'll take care of this, you ass," and charged out the back door. Mom couldn't stand the poor beast suffering - she was upset that the squirrel was badly hurt and unable to run away. So she grabbed a piece of firewood from the porch and marched purposefully toward the squirrel. In her haste, she slipped in the mud and fell.  Firewood went flying and mom did a split. Then she too started thrashing around, badly hurt and unable to run away.

Meanwhile, dad is still hanging out of the upstairs window, cracking up at all this. From his perspective, watching them flail about together in the mud was a comical sight. Mom finally gets up, covered in mud, and limps in the back door. Dad sees the limp, stops laughing, and goes down to help her strip out of her filthy clothes. She tells him that she is seriously hurt.

I hear all of this from my brother, who is dying to tell me because dad specifically told him not to tell me. Dad thought I would be upset with him for shooting squirrels. The truth is, what I find even more upsetting than my dad thinking it's okay to hang out of the upstairs window like a crazy man shooting rodents in a residential neighborhood, is that my mother has the capacity to bash a squirrel to death with a stick of firewood.

As if that's not bad enough, my sister's husband shoots squirrels from his birdfeeder too. Except he dresses his victims in miniature items stolen from the Christmas ornament collection.