Hi LF and RJ! Haven't been over here for a bit, but let me say: Well done, indeed! Not only did you manage to carry out the butchering, you have presented the emotional and moral issues very well. I particularly liked this passage: "...definitely more committed to our livestock, and strangely, so much more intimately connected to life and this earth... much more deeply than our city counterparts- who recoil in horror, and to whom we have difficulty explaining." The distancing of people from their food sources and the amount of denial that goes on among many people who get all their food from the supermarket is appalling. So much of today's supermarket food is overpackaged, overprocessed and downright disguised, to the point where it is impossible to see what the raw ingredients are. It allows people to conveniently "forget" that all food comes from animals or plants and to raise their children in profound ignorance of what food really is. I guess turning a blind eye is the only way that they can handle contributing to the horrors of factory farming. Sorry, I didn't mean this to turn into a rant. I mainly wanted to say that you did really, really well!

I live in a metropolis within a large world reknowned city. I have only hens, nothing that crows. My mom lives in a small suburb of a larger, but still small, little known, Colorado town. I was born in this town, and she was born a mere few (20) miles away. It has tripled in size in the last 10 years, those Dam Californians, moving in, building mansions, houses that eat up all the water, no reguard for anyone else... The Iguanas are NOT loose. They inhabit the cages you see in the background. Never, ever have they been loose, in my knowledge. She was told in the very beginning, that was a BAD idea, as they move fast, and climb well. If they got free during Summer, they would head for the door, and climb the nearest tree they saw. Hang it all up, after that! My chickens are all Barnies, meaning they could have been a species amoungst themselves, once, but they got tossed in with the rest, like the Polish top knot rooster, and inter bred. I am trying to go Green, and find that a real live solution to a pest problem is ever so much easier than dealing with chemicals, results, measurements, residues... I prefer the live bait/trap solution. In the bare week the chooks (Austrailian term for chickens) have been here, they have groomed a good 20 square feet of yard, eaten their weight four or so times over in grubs and kitchen garbage. They will produce eggs, but in the quantity they exist in, I could never 'count' on fresh eggs for ANYthing. Four hens, maximum production, wind blowing right, 'love is in the air', creek don't rise, I might, MIGHT get four eggs every day (I doubt it, very much!) and they don't have a solid record yet with me. No eggs in 7 days time. No record at all. They do vacuum bugs at an alarming rate. Then there is the sour milk, kitchen scrap thing. Seems it just goes 'poof'. Then again, I don't have the 100 chickens my mother is blessed with... Diane, check out Murry Mcmurry, or some such spelling. They are a large hatchery (recently seen on Dirty Jobs, with the chicken sexing bit) that does a huge mail order business. They will send you a catalog with 'drawn' illustrations rather than photos. Still will make your heart go 'pitter patter' when it comes to chickens! My mom lives on less than four acres, with at least 300 different birds, quail, pidgeons, doves, pheasant, geese, ducks, and lots and lots of chickens. There are nearly 80 rabbits, the week I left, they just had 41 rabbit babies... Don't ask me more, I avoid them, as they are the only thing I KNOW I'm allergic to. Babies and young, I can hold. Adults and juveniles make me sneeze non-stop for hours and hours. Then there are the 9 horses. The cleaning business. The orchard, five or so apple tress, 2 or 3 apricots, same amount of plums, pear trees, and an Asian Apple Pear. She cans AND makes wine from the orchard. There is a berry patch, and an herb garden there somewhere. She is an active puppeteer, crochets avidly, and grinds grain to make bread from scratch... I so much hope that I look like my mother when I am her age. Thank you, I have ALWAYS thought she was beautiful. She wears her journey well.

Some very funny comments, I laughed a lot! Well in the defense of mulch, I use grass clippings over newspaper. i think it looks good and is far superior and easier than trying to keep the beds weed free. Well the most obnoxious front yard in our area is a small pond surrounded by these big odd shaped rocks, and scattered all over the "lawn". Oh yes, I forgot my neighbors front yard in which he has put all sorts of rusted old farm machinery. The final touch is a plastic deer pulling a hay rake. Now he lets the grass grow until it is knee high then he finally mows it using this immense tractor that makes an enormous noise, something for use on a farm for cutting hay, I think. And weed wacks around the old farm stuff for hours. He loves noise making machinery. And we are at odds over our vastly different politics which doesn't help when he revs up his stuff. Oh yes did I mention his chain saw for cutting fire wood. Of which he has a huge pile on his lawn. As you can tell I live in a once predominately farming area. t

I don't know if now still remembers Grandma Moses, I still love her. Am not familiar with Elinor Wylie, have to look her up. I can totally agree with Edith Sitwell's first quote and also her others. Somewhere we still have a couple of his records, got to look for them.