Blog 3-Harvesting food
When I was younger my mom home schooled all of us and one of our learning experiences was growing a garden. We made such a beautiful garden and I’m so thankful that she did that because I definitely do feel a connection from where my food comes from. We could of lived off that garden if we needed to. My mom would ask me to go make a salad and I would go out and pull carrots and pluck tomatoes and pick lettuce and snow peas and so much more, my favorite was the strawberries and blueberries. It was such a process to plow the dirt and plant the seeds and tend to them constantly weeding and watering and it was just such a rewarding experience as a child, to see the things I worked to make and learned how these things came about. To this day I still compare fruits and vegetables to the ones we grew.
On the other hand when it comes to live animals. I used to live in Alaska and hunting is a big thing there, and I always thought I could do it too. But then one day my brother and I were lining up GI Joes on this tree branch and shooting them with a BB gun and a bird landed next to them and Alec my brother was like “get the bird” and I was like “yeah okay” and I shot not thinking I would hit it and the bird fell down dead. I was so shocked and distraught that I ran to it and as soon as I realized I killed it I just started bawling. So I feel like I could never kill an animal just for game. I feel like the only time I could do it was for survival, so I definitely feel like there is a connection between the food one kills and the killer, because even though I would be doing it to survive. I would still feel bad about it.
I feel like if everyone had to kill their own meat and butcher it then many people wouldn’t eat it, but since it is just ready there for us most people don’t even give it a second thought.
These articles show many different sides to this issue, I think hunting okay when necessary but killing animals when it isn’t necessary is a sad thing.
Dodd, Johnny, and Wendy Grossman. "FROM LAWN TO LUNCH." People 71.15 (2009): 123- 127. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Apr. 2010
Layton, Robert, Robert. Foley, and Elizabeth Williams. "The Transition between Hunting and Gathering and the Specialized Husbandry of Resources." Current Anthropology 32.3 (1991): 255-263. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Apr. 2010.
I liked your stories, both of the memories of and appreciation for your childhood garden, as well as your experience with shooting the bird. My husband had a pre-teenage "rite of passage" hunting experience with his dad and uncle wherein he learned how to hunt small game birds, and it left him with a similar distaste for the act of killing. When I inquired as to any inclinations toward hunting he might have in order to provide healthy, organic, natural and affordable meat for our family, he immediately recalled that childhood feeling of what it felt like to kill birds. He didn't care for it much either.
ReplyDeleteIt was a different sort of feeling for me when we started raising our meat chickens. It's odd to call them that, but that's really what they are. I knew these were food; I would not let myself get attached to them. Fortunately, they made it easy for me. The kind I raised were Jumbo Cornish Cross; quite unlike any other chicken around. In fact, if you didn't butcher them at the 8 or 9 week mark, they would suffer from heart failure and leg issues from carrying so much weight. These creatures are bred to be killed and eaten, and bred to be BIG. "Efficient feed to growth ratio" in chicken jargon. They were eating and pooping machines; I couldn't keep enough grain in the coop for them. When I filled it in the morning, they all frantically ran to the feeder, fighting and climbing over each other for position, and they would devour the food until it was gone or they were exhausted. They would sit lazily around the rest of the day, even though they had access to a yard. They didn't behave like natural chickens; they weren't natural chickens. They were ugly; not enough feathers to cover their little pink fleshy bodies. They were clammy and sweaty; when I had to touch one to move it inside at bedtime, I was grossed out. This was an eye opening experience for me. On the other hand, the heritage breed chickens that my friend raised may have been more feathered and true to mother nature's intentions for the bird, they were still scrawny and bony at the 9 week mark; hardly enough meat for two people. Not so great with the efficiency factor. I'm not sure what we'll raise in the future. Maybe we'll give turkeys a try.