Bloody gumdrop brains

I am not a vegan, I am not even a vegetarian.  I am, in fact, a fully committed carnivore who welcomes my place in the food chain both as predator and as prey, meaning that I would consider it an honorable death to be eaten by a grizzly bear or a tiger. 

But I do think food is important, and I hope to cultivate in myself and my family a healthy relationship with the the earth; with the soil, the flora, and the fauna that nourish us and give us life.  For me that process begins, at least, with understanding where food comes from.

And ideal setting for this kind of education would be a farm where we could go about the daily business of reaping and sowing.  As I’ve written about previously, I would love to live on one.   It would be awesome to even have a garden – to plow the earth and plant seeds and eat fresh corn on the cob, cucumbers, and summer squash with dinner like my parents do. Sadly, we don’t.  So we do the best we can given our busy schedules and small plot of rented land.

We shop at the local farmer’s market Saturday mornings:

We grow and eat our own herbs:

We stock our fridge and counters with “slow foods” and eat them whole when we have a chance.

We visit farms (thanks for the Audubon Society membership, Cami!) and talk about what happens there (even though our daughter doesn’t speak a lick of English).

And we go to a small, local zoo, where we watch other animals eating.  Remember that song about the kookaburra?  You know, the merry king of the bush that eats gumdrops and laughs all day?  Well, apparently" “merry” is a euphemism for “violent” and “gumdrop” is a euphemism for “small rodent.” 

Whilst visiting said zoo, Squiggles and I watched a kookaburra having lunch.  He caught a mouse, but instead of eating it forthright, spent a good minute or two bashing its head against the branch on which he was perched – ensuring the mouse wouldn’t make any trouble once inside, perhaps.  We were just a foot away, so close that we were splashed with …. ummm… mouse fluid.

I considered taking my daughter to the next exhibit, but (in a move that will likely cost me mother-of-the-year award) decided to stay and let her watch as the large bird beat the rodent senseless and then swallowed him whole.  Squiggles watched carefully, absorbing every detail as in her way,  and then ran off to see the pelicans with no immediate signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe over time these experiences will give her a healthy perspective on food, biology, process, and consumption.

Or maybe, this day:  Squiggles, in her early twenties, will be sitting in a cushioned chair in an air-conditioned office, and will say to some kind and nodding phychologist, “…And then there was the time she made me watch that bird beating the crap out of this cute little mouse…”

Parenting, really, is just gambling with the highest stakes imaginable.

I need to go wash some murine entrails from my person.  Enjoy some Wendell Barry quotes:

 

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."
— Wendell Berry

"What I stand for is what I stand on."
— Wendell Berry

"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality."
— Wendell Berry

"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do."
— Wendell Berry

"I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade."
— Wendell Berry (What Are People For?)