The Self Sufficient Farm

The Change of Life…

So, (and yes, I know it stinks to use the word “SO” in the beginning of a sentence), let me tell you guys about the crap I’ve been mentally working through. Yea, it’s about killing a chicken to eat for dinner or any other meal.

If you are a meat eater (and yes I am), I think at one point or another the lovely, paisley colored mental pictures, which are painted of ‘life on the farm’, fade into common sense, and the thoughts of the real world hit you.  It comes down to the honest day-to-day working of a farm of any kind. I mean, are you actually going to use this as a Self-Sustaining farm or not? That is my dream, yes…  These little turd making critters are lovely and wonderful, but at what point is it no longer just a hobby? When is it a real farm? When do you make the change over? Is it when you see yourself spending copious amounts of cash on food for them? Or perhaps it’s when you see the prices of food you buy at the grocery store, going up and knowing that poor hen you just cooked for dinner lived life in a grotesque way.- The sort of life that makes your soul ache.

Yes, that’s when the energetic switch hit me. I can’t condone in any way how chickens are treated in mass chicken farms. I squint in pain just thinking of the poor things. Sort of like you do when you suck a lemon….

Yea, that face…

Yes, I’m a animal lover and spoil my hens rotten. I love my girls, and they are the source of great joy for me. If you have read my blog for all these years, you know this already. I do need to change things though…

I think this is where my Mom would say, “Crap or get off the pot” (Sorry Mom, you know you would).

If I’m going to contribute to, and count myself as one of the  ‘chicken eating federation’, then I really have to be honest with myself and be accountable to this process.. What process? Butchering a Hen for dinner…

When I say that, I’m always reminded of my Great-Grandmother Lopez, who comes from a long line of chicken eaters. She loved her hens too, and would defend them ferociously! Yes, don’t get in her way. She also would cull a hen who crossed her, without even a hesitation. If a hen was one of those who picked on others and pecked or fought, they didn’t make it back into the coop that night. They were dinner. Even a hen who crowed had a short life-span! She said, they were bad luck. Yes, hens will crow… Not nearly as amazingly as a Rooster does, but yes, they still crow from time to time. Either way, they were dinner if they did.

OK? Well, if you say so…

I do have a hen that crows, and secretly, I hope it’s that mean-ass Golden Comet. She is not a nice bird. If another hen is eating she starts a fight and beats them up and pushes them away from the feed. She has a lousy personality. She’s even tested me a time or two and she loses, but really, at times I look at her and think, “Dear, just keep pushing me”…

***BA-GAWK***  Oops….. One less hen.

I think, her days might be numbered… She may be the catalyst that brings this event into reality.

Out of the birds I have, I can’t really think of any I would enjoy butchering. No, not in the least. Actually, my gut wrenches just thinking of me having to do something like that.

It is how our Grandparent lived though… I’m still battling the thoughts which go into this. I’ve been Vegan, Vegetarian. I didn’t like it, nor did I enjoy any aspect of it. Yea, no lectures please. I have a delete button.

We all have to make our own choices on this topic. I’m just sharing with you my transition, if there ever becomes one.

Perhaps for me, the solution is to have a different area where birds are raised for meat exclusively with my personal interaction limited. OK, not like that’s going to happen. I really love to interact with the animals here. So we’re right back to square 1…

I hear voices in my head saying, “But you can buy those hens who live good lives, in “free range farms”; over there in the freezer section”…  Yea? You really believe all that hokey? It’s still mass marketing at its finest. Germ infested plants who handle my food…  Nope. No thanks.

So you’ll be getting a sequel to this post.

As always.. I love you guys and gals!

PS… The reason you don’t see a bunch of blips and bleeps of blinking advertisements here, is because I don’t sell my blog to advertisers… This is therapy for me. Enjoy!