Bridging the gap

Today was a first for me - I got a comment on a blog post from someone I didn't know! Exciting, even if it was on a blog post written by someone else.

The post was from a vegan woman in Florida named Bea who objected to our killing and eating of Number 16. She raised a couple of important points that I wholeheartedly agree with. First, that "food animals" are a cultural construct (that is, I will eat my cow but not my dog, which is the opposite of some countries), and, second, that we must stop factory farming. I thought this was enough to give us some common ground, even though we disagree on the ultimate fate of well cared for farm animals.

I was reminded of some comments I heard a while back regarding ranchers, farmers, and the environmental movement. It seems that in our effort to save the land, we demonized those who care for the land, arguably, better than the rest of us. Granted, they care for it from the perspective of productivity rather than wilderness protection. But, they benefit more than anyone from having the land and water free of toxic waste. Yet, somehow, even though the environmentalists and the farmers/ranchers could agree on this much, that wasn't enough to band together and stop the coal plant from being built, or the tailings pile from being dumped in the river. Rather, it was more important for each group to be right, to have their values upheld completely. What could have been a powerful partnership led to more division, and, ultimately, the polluters won.

Which brings me back to Bea's comments. Clearly we have differing views on what is compassionate or necessary for the proper care of livestock. But we can both agree that factory farming must stop.

Is it possible to agree to disagree until that goal is reached? And then take up the further task of reconciling our differences?

Maybe if the vegans, vegetarians, and cattle ranchers banded together on this, we could put an end to the sick practices of factory farming. We could make small, family farms viable again and make some progress toward a saner food system.

Then we can argue about whether or not we should be eating animals...

On the Homestead this week - "Days" Reprise

Another reprise from S's blog...reminding me we have been coming at this for a while now...

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We are getting ready for winter, and reaping the harvest!

15 pounds of peaches (and a lot of sugar!) are being turned, by microbe, into 5 gallons of peach wine. It's an experiment, but it already smells delicious.

We finally invested in a pressure canner, and then practiced using it on tomatoes that didn't need to be pressure-canned, just to be sure we knew what we were doing!
So this weekend, we put up:
4 quarts of tomatoes (it would have been five, but one jar cracked in the canner!)
11 pints of mixed dill pickles
5 half-pints of peach jam---I have finally made a jam that 'jammed'! Rock out!
Several pounds of pesto are in the freezer, frozen in ice-cube trays, then stored in a Ziploc for easy portioning.

We've got another batch of anaheims ready to be roasted. If we could just stop eating them all as soon as we roast them, we might actually get some canned up for winter!


Yesterday, we got the first eggplant. And promptly made Thai curry. Mmmmm.... curry. We are now over 100 pounds of produce! There are more apples still to come, and eggplant, and tomatoes and (maybe) corn. Oh. And lots and lots of carrots and winter squash and more potatoes.

Quinoa for dinner tonight, cornmeal muffins for breakfast Sat/Sun, brown rice last night, whole wheat pizza dough on Saturday. We are gradually adjusting to whole grains. It takes a little getting used to, but eventually, your stomach adjusts to the fiber.

We bought 50 pounds of rolled oats at the IFA, for $16. This sounds like crazy talk, and it might be. But I go through at least one of those big cardboard Quaker oat cans a month in the summer, making granola for John, and two a month in the winter when I'm eating oatmeal. This bag should last us until next year, for about the cost of two cans of oats. It might be crazy---we'll see how it goes. We can always feed it to the horses and the chickens! It's interesting to be eating the same things that I feed my horse... maybe I shouldn't think too hard about that.

Many weeks ago, we bought a 50 pound bag of hard red wheat, and are gradually working our way through it. J (the baker!) tells me that it's very different to work with, but he likes it. It's fun to grind it in the grinder, and you just can't get any fresher than that!

It is not lost on us that we get more and more 'Utah', the longer we live here. ; )

We cleaned out under the grape arbor, and moved a table and chairs out there. It turns out to be a wonderful place to have dinner! But we are now out of wine completely. ; ) I sure hope that merlot-cab blend that's ripening in the basement turns out! We have a Mexican Cerveza to make, as soon as we can get back down to G3 and pick up some yeast. Maybe that will be Thursday evening's project.

The CSA box comes tomorrow. I wonder what will be in it?!

The change in seasons

Just documenting this quickly, so I remember:

Today, the first "big" storm of the season, and the first hard freeze forecast for tonight. We have a few minor issues that need to be dealt with near-term:

1. Clean out the gutters (again!)
2. Put gutters on the hay barn
3. Reseal joint between hay barn and garage
4. Lay more barn mulch on paths to reduce mud
5. Fix leak near furnace vent in roof

All in all, not too bad, considering we got a month's worth of rain in a few hours last night.

Number 16, Reprise

In honor of the Harvest Party, Stacy's first post on #16...

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June 13, 2010

On our way out to bring the horses in, we came across our neighbor, worming and tagging his new steers. He breeds most of his own, but these four he bought at the cattle auction---they are this year's calves, and one of them is completely wild. So we got to watch as he maneuvered them through the chute, gave them their shots, punched holes in their ears for the tags, and then let them out again, onto the knee-high grass.

The wild one gave some trouble, but Dale just stood back and looked until he figured out how to get it done. I know the feeling in his head, as he turned the puzzle pieces this way and that, taking his time, until he figured out how to get the wild one by himself in the chute. We've been doing a lot of this kind of physical problem-solving lately. Again and again, we learn that sometimes you just have to step back and think about it until it all clicks, and you see what to do.

Dale had brought one of his older steers in with these young ones, because 'he's a particularly docile and pleasant steer'. This is Number 16. Now, I've had my eye on 16 ever since we moved in, because I thought, 'Now THAT is a good-looking steer'. I have, apparently, learned to judge steers from Bill and Carl, because Dale also thinks he's a particularly good-looking steer. This is all so familiar to me, what he's doing over there. I recognize it. It's comforting to see someone farm the way I remember it from when I was small. I have a level of knowledge about this that goes down into my toes, because I learned it hanging around the barn when I was too small to know better than to eat raw soybeans.

So then, we were leaning over the fence, talking to Dale and Genevieve, and I got my order in for 1/2, possibly a whole beef, come fall butchering time. (A couple of friends have said they want to go in on it with us, so it's not as crazy as it sounds!) Dale raises his beef on pasture, without hormones, all the way to five weeks before butchering. Then he feeds them grain for a short time to tenderize them. Then he has the butcher come, right there, on his property, so the steers don't get scared or dragged or beaten. They never have time to panic or get upset. They just get quickly and efficiently killed and butchered into little packages for the freezer. Our neighbors make an event of it, betting on weights with lots of friends who come around to help or heckle, as the case may be.

This probably sounds weird, but I'm ok with watching my food grow up, then watching it be killed, and watching it be put in freezer packages---I know number 16 is living a good steer life, safe from injury, accident and predators. He is cared for and husbanded. I know Dale knows him personally, as an individual. That matters to me.

And I also know that my hamburger will come from one healthy animal, instead of thousands killed all on the same day in one of America's 17 (!!!!!) slaughterhouses, ground together with meat from Mexico, Argentina and New Zealand. It's a price I'm willing to pay for my food, to watch it grow, to learn to know it, to learn it's habits and it's personality. And in the end, to make it part of me. Oh, yeah, and to help my neighbor live the life he loves, which reminds me so strongly of the life someone I love has led.

It doesn't get any more local than this. I could be vegetarian instead, and I leaned that way for a while, when I first started learning about our 'modern' food system, and felt powerless to make any changes. But I don't think that meat is the problem. Dale and his cattle are not the problem. My flock of laying hens is not the problem. Factory farms are the problem, whether they are growing beef or tomatoes. There are worse things in the world than death, and many of them can be found at feedlots, slaughterhouses and factory farms.

So I'll buy number 16. And every time I have beef, I'll think of his black coat glistening in the sun, and his contented munching on grass up to his belly, and his chasing the labrador, who gets just a little too close sometimes. And I'll be a little thoughtful, but not upset. Because I value the life my neighbor and Bill and Carl choose to live. My time on the farm when I was a kid taught me that there's value in living a good life, and there's value in sacrifice. Sometimes the sacrifice comes in the middle, as it does for most people. And sometimes it comes at the end, as it does for some people, (soldiers especially come to mind), and all of our food animals. Sacrifice comes. And there is worse to make of it than a plate of ribs shared with friends for Derby Day. Or a hamburger cookout with family on the Fourth of July. Or even just a good home-cooked meal after a hard day of putting up fence in the rain and the wind and the cold---fence to protect these steers or their kin.

Number 16. Now THAT's a good-looking steer.

Bellwether Farm: Number 16

Bellwether Farm: Number 16: "Tonight, I ate a heart that was ticking less than 12 hours ago, cooked in a stew with broth made from a tail that was twitching less than 12..."