Turnips in the yard
Reader beware. If you are expecting the seraphim to flap their wings solemnly throughout this piece, search elsewhere. This is not a theological work, no musing on how many of their numbers might fit on a pin head. Today, we simply speak of destiny.
I may wish for a different role in life. But alas, although the home phone seldom rings, when it does, I always answer with some hesitation. Are we marked at birth for the roles we will play in this life? Do the gods gather up a handful of archetypal or character dust and randomly start slinging it about — a little leadership landing there, a bit of maternal instinct here, the jovial, the innocent, the hero cast willy-nilly over the sleeping infants. Is that how it works, what it all comes down to in the end? An Angel of Death for this valley?
It pains me to make this public admission, but when an animal needs to be dispatched, I get the call. It is not a job I sought, yet it comes to me more often than I wish.
The neighbors with a mortally injured lamb who can’t bring themselves, literally, to pull the trigger? They call me. Dying deer on the side of the road, they call me. Pet chickens in the final stages, they call me, Brian the Neck Wringer. It can all get a bit depressing, this being the spine for, shall we call them, the timid. I’d much prefer that they get on with the job themselves. But they can’t, they won’t. They call. Like the day my muscle-bound neighbor followed his hog around a pen for half an hour, pistol in trembling hand, looking for just the right shot to put the pig down, but could never quite pull the trigger. I felt compelled to act. I went to the house, grabbed the 30-30, and, returning to the scene of indecisiveness, pushed past and killed the hog with a single shot.
If you are going to eat meat — hell, if you are going to drive a car — you are going to have blood on your hands. My attitude, perhaps, has more than a strong whiff of the judgmental. But it is justified, certainly. Soon after I first met Cindy, a neighbor’s Doberman got into her barnyard and savaged her sheep. After watching the neighbor hem and haw over killing the bloodied and dying animals, I reached for the 410 in his hands and did the deed myself. I hate to see an animal suffer or a hard decision postponed on account of spinelessness masquerading as compassion.
I hasten to say I’m not insensitive (right?). I chalk up my willingness to kill to a lifetime of gutting catfish caught on trotlines from the family pond, cleaning speckled trout and dolphinfish all night after a day of fishing on the gulf, butchering hundreds of chickens I’ve raised to put meat on the table. One carries out these unpleasantries if one eats. Or did, before the advent of mass man and consumerism distanced us from death. Allowed us to believe that it is better for the immigrant, the lower waged, the lower class to do our dirty work, butcher our meat, butcher our enemies. Washed our hands….
Oddly, and perhaps one reason Cindy and I have been together 35 years, she is called out for the opposite function. If the Angel of Mercy is needed, the phone also rings. When a mother goose got separated from her goslings at work, colleagues called Cindy to solve the problem. When a dog gets injured in the valley — bitten by a snake, shot by a neighbor, hit by a car — the call comes for Cindy. Where my toolbox contains an axe, rifle, and knife, hers includes clear-eyed compassion and skills honed over decades caring for animals in her charge.
Hers is the more rewarding role to play. People come up to her and give her hugs years later for helping nurse a beloved pet or farm animal back to health. I, on the other hand, get the careful nod, averted eyes. Wary, they seem, lest I discern a limp in their step and go for my shotgun.
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Reading this weekend: Sign Posts In A Strange Land (Percy). “the fruit of such mismatch is something to behold: Baptist governors and state legislators who loot the state with Catholic gaiety and Protestant industry.”
I can relate. Fortunately for me, word hasn’t got out yet, and the killing has all been on our own farm. Back when we started farming, I was convinced that it would get easier the more I’d done it, but I’ve found the opposite to be true for me.
David,
I hear you. Compassion and the need to eat are uneasy bedfellows. But they are not incompatible. Hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas. Let’s have that beer in 2020.
Cheers,
Never having been in any remotely relevant situation regarding nursing or dispatching animals, it strikes me that our separation and alienation from the natural world we all used to inhabit as agriculturalists (pre-1900) has now delivered a second aspect to the general fear of death: unwillingness to take action when needed to end suffering. The stories you tell are about animals on the farm, but as the Boomer generation is increasingly forced to make decisions on behalf of aging parents, it will take some fortitude (lacking, it seems) to face difficult scenarios with compassion and circumspection. Yet we’re simultaneously witness to a certain callousness with regard to the value of life: the citizenry (in the U.S.) is being ground down to desperate levels of precarious existence. We haven’t yet reached the endgame.
We had a friend lose his father recently. Another friend, a grown woman of 45, couldn’t bring herself to attend the funeral, having never been to one before.
I never really thought of myself as a true farmer, homesteader, whatever term people prefer, until I actually killed and cleaned my own chickens. It’s not my favorite thing to do but it lets me do something I do like, which is eating.
It makes me uneasy when people, usually women, tell me they could never do such a thing. It’s almost an accusing comment. On good days I just stay silent.
TeresaSue
TeresaSue,
Now this is totally between you and me (so everyone else tune out). I agree.
Merry Christmas,
Interesting… you mention the many fish killings of your youth as a possible gateway to your ability to take on the task now. And I too killed many a catfish, the occasional small mouthed bass, crawdads (crayfish?), squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, and raccoon (the two latter fellows were not for dinner). Now here I sit recalling the last critter I killed for a meal and realize it was more difficult than perhaps it should have been.
And the case of a fatally wounded young Canada Goose that had to be dispatched at work a couple years ago… the only weapon to hand worth the effort was a 2X4. I put the poor bird down, in clear view of its gander. Just after a coworker suggested I didn’t look too good. I didn’t feel too good to be honest. So I have to agree with David – this doesn’t get easier; and with the bare fact that easy or not – someone must be capable of doing this.
But a different puzzle has crossed my thinking – do you Brian, find it any less difficult to dispatch chickens or fish compared to say a lamb or a pig? I suppose the question whittles down to whether relative distance on the tree of life matters. I know so many folks who will easily kill house flies, spiders, and mice, but are horrified by hunters killing game or squeamish at discussing what their Thanksgiving turkey did the prior Monday.
One of the reasons I no longer raise Red Wattle hogs is because they have the most lovely brown eyes. I’m serious. Just seeing those big round eyes watching you over the months leading up to slaughter was enough to make ones intentions falter. But the bottom line remains, if an animal needs to be dispatched because of injury or illness I don’t have a problem. If it needs to be killed for food I just try and do it as cleanly as possible. And always, I mean always, make sure you thank the animal when you eat.
This post, perhaps, is a bit of a dig at hobby farmers that now litter the valley. They want the trappings without the work and accumulated acts that make it real.
Have a Merry Christmas, Clem,
More interesting revelations…
While in college I lived among lots of Animal Science students. Most of the cattle guys had this air about them… dairy was less important, goats were for immigrants from desperate parts of the world, and so on. And then me, likely dropped on my head as a child because I thought plants were worthy of serious study. Oh well.
But I set that up to go to this next conversation I had with a fellow “outcast” – the son of a dairyman. They raised the classic Holstein dairy cows. When I asked if they’d ever raised Brown Swiss he sheepish admitted that he’d learned from his father that Brown Swiss were good dairy cows, but they were too cute. Too hard to butcher when the time came. Your Red Wattle story brought back this memory – and gave it some context. You are not alone. So thanks for that.
Best wished for the holidays to you and Cindy.
I kill with words, separating pompous limb from useless body. Things may clear up, yet there are but very few thanks to be had.
Merry Christmas to both of you and yours.
Thanks to you both. Clem, I hope I-75 treats you and your family kindly.
Michael, I hope the weather clears up finally for you and 2020 is fair and even temperature(d) all year.
Merry Christmas,