AN EARLY MORNING

I was up before dawn and in the waning moonlight I saw a deer in our front yard. She was a  few feet from the blueberries. We planted them several years ago and they have failed to give us a crop, because the deer like them for browse. I watched her, she didn't nibble on them this time. I have intended to cover the blueberries with netting but then I don't, until it is too late. The deer have big appetites and we have several young apple trees that are denuded of branches as far as they can reach. One apple tree, a Honeycrisp, is a favorite food, I did net that tree because they can reach the very top and there would be nothing left of it, if I didn't.

I got up before dawn [which is not that early in this latitude] because we have a big project to complete. I had hoped to get my blogging done before now, 9 AM, but one thing and another caused delay.

We have twenty something broilers to be made ready for the freezer. A broiler is a chicken raised particularly for that purpose. We raise a breed that doesn't have all the chicken qualities bred out of them. They are free range and they travel all around the yard looking for bugs and scratching in the flower beds. The chickens raised commercially have all the chickenness bred out of them they are little factories for putting on weight. They walk from their feeder to their waterer and not much else.

We have contemplated vegetarianism but we are omnivores and we accept it. However, we cannot accept how contemporary farming has reduced animals to meat factories. All animals deserve a free and dignified life and a painless, terror-free death. The art of providing animals with a dignified departure has been known for thousands of years.

I decided some years ago that if I was going to eat meat I needed to take responsibility for the process. I would be happy to give up the task to someone else, but for now it is mine to do.

It is very possible that humanity is evolving towards vegetarianism. That would be fine with me. I have thought a great deal about it and in a future blog I will discuss it further.

Regardless of whether we eat meat or turnips we need to do everything with love. Who can say that plants are less sentient than animals? We raise food crops with the same insensitivity to their true nature, as we do animals. We disregard Nature at every turn. Is not Nature the reflection of Source? We need to rediscover Nature. We need to see how we are Nature. We need to immerse ourselves in our natural surroundings. We cannot make the best decisions while separate from nature and each other.

Love and Peace,  Gregg