Late last night I walked up from the barn, cold, a little wet, tired and came into the house shedding layers of wellies, coats and jumpers as I went. Then sat down while I waited for the kettle to boil and realized something important – I was so happy.
I love animals and always have – right now in our house we have a turtle, canaries (one is sitting on an egg), a dog, a cat and some fish. Sometimes I don’t know who they are all for – us (the parents) or the kids.
We all get some much pleasure from caring for them, interacting with them and spending our days together. Of course there is the work aspect of it too – but it has become part of my usual morning routine – water, feed, clean everyone one in the house and then, go out to the barn.
The little barn has become an extension of our home and our table. The animals there are different from the house pets in that some of them are for food, others for breeding however, all are living beings and treated accordingly.
The stories told at the end of the day when we are all together again (dad is home) usually come from the antics of the barnyard or what the cat was up to at some point in the day (today he had a large spider cornered – well you know the rest).
One of our greatest pleasures has been the turkeys – of all things! I have raised turkeys before, but not ever with such an awareness of their lives, watching them, interacting with them and listening to their happy little cheeps.
We laugh nearly every day at these large birds as the mingle with the goats, ducks and humans down in the yard. Like the time a turkey decided he was a duck and stepped into the duck pool while the ducks were frantically scrambling to get out.
He just stood there with his long legs in the middle of the pool looking around – at all the fuss from the ducks. Was he thinking – so this is what the water bath is all about?
Yesterday I was showing the children videos online of turkeys being humanely slaughtered – just so that when our time comes for turkey dinner they are not overly shocked. They didn't seem at all phased by it but we have talked about this part of the life cycle since day one.
Of course I worked for several years as a Food Hygiene Inspector and have seen more than my share of animals going to slaughter. As well as days spent standing in cold water, working in smelly barns and otherwise keeping watch over food animals, inside and out.
The nicest part of all of this rearing animals for our own food is we know what they eat, we know they are loved and cared for – and that they will make wonderful food for our table when the time comes.
April
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