Things that are making you crabbit! [4]

We have a field right by our cabin where they keep ox calves in summer, you literally have to drive across it to get anywhere, and I think they have a rather nice time off it.

So although I know most of them are going to be slaughtered when they take them away in the autumn, I figure at least they had a nice summer.

That's the best way, Norc and Blue.  It's better for the animals, and in my opinion it produces better tasting and healthier meat.  

But the problem for the businesses it that, as you say, the natural time to butcher is in the autumn, so the price of beef is lowest then, and becomes more and more expensive through the winter and spring.  Imagine what McDonald's would have to do if 33 million cattle were butchered in September and October, and everybody had to find space in freezers to keep it.  

So instead they preserve the "meat" by keeping it alive till they need it, and in the process farming is changed into a giant meat factory.  The more you know, the creepier it seems.

When I can, I buy my beef from a neighbor who is a retired butcher with a small shop behind his house. He buys from farmers he knows, and knows exactly the quality he's looking at when he butchers,  cuts and wraps.  It's just good to know where your food comes from.

The more I know about agribusiness meat processing the less I buy ground beef.  

I dont eat pigs because I dont know how they have been treated while alive.

Yeah...that's worse than the beef industry....  

I wish my neighbor knew a pig farmer.

Im vegetarian, I just cant swallow meat knowing what it once was. I am not naive about food, farms etc, for me its personal. Im surrounded by countryside, I see baby lambs bouncing about, cuddling 'mum' & it chokes me up, Ive been scorned, ridiculed & sniped at cos I wont eat things I believe contain meat & I wont eat eggs that are from chickens that are kept in cruel misery. I also dont eat fish. I cant abide animal cruelty, Id gladly serve time if it meant helping the animal world from the cruel clutches of greedy money grabbing scumbags. I do see the need to "feed the world", I see the need to develop medicines & vaccinations etc,via animal labs but, not the need for animal torture or suffering. Its their world also.

I understand the vegetarian thing, Az. For me it's not so simple.

I was raised on this farm with the understanding that, way back in the stone age, our ancestors made a contract with all the farm animals, the cows, pigs, sheep, goats, geese and chickens, that we would protect them, feed them, and give them the best life possible. In return they'd give us food. Without us, they'd mostly all die. Without them, so would most of us.

It sounds a bit childish when I put it into words now, but I still feel somehow bound by the contract. Whenever I eat meat, I think about the animal and the "contract", and I wonder about how the creature was treated.  A nice roast feels like honoring the contract. A Big Mac...not so much.

Az, I wish I had the moral fortitude to be a vegetarian. So many good reasons even beyond doing right by animals, but I am weak. I admit it, and at the very least eat several times less meat than the average, but I can't resist it sometimes. Like Hostess cupcakes.

Dont get me wrong please ! Im not judging anyone, its just how I feel ? My great grandmother owned & ran a farm, pigs, sheep, cereals. Animals were butchered when time came. I just get het up when I hear some daft bint will only wear snakeskin shoes or whatever, Ive seen what animals can go thru in the name of 'throw away' fashion, its sickening ! Ivory poaching is sickening, bear bile collecting is sickening, so cos I feel sick pretty much all of the time, I cant eat the thing thats started it   ... animals. (dont think I dont miss Gammon, cos I fooking do !)

Don't worry Az. I never took you for judgmental.  
I'm just happy when people are taking the time to think about where their food comes from, no matter what decisions they make.  

  

I often wish I didn't know where my food came from. And my own uncle raises chickens in drawers, and pigs in metal pens. I don't say anything because it would be ruinously divisive, but I wish he'd jump on the organic free-range bandwagon. Maybe his son will.

Yeah, that's a hard one. And not only would it be divisive, it would probably only drive him to entrench deeper into his position.

Us farmers are like that, I've been told.... 

i just want to say that the bus-driver is a dick.

I'll be sure to avoid then.

I cant eat the thing thats started it- Azriel

Well if you do come up to Scotland for a visit you might want to bring your own veg with you, it doesnt feature highly in the scottish diet due to two factors- the difficulty in deep frying it, and the lack of meat in it.

Is that really you?

Maybe.....

 

Well you never know, there might be more than one of me- which is as frightening a thought as it is horrific (unless you sell buckie)

Doesn't it say anything on the back of the buckie bottle about looking in the mirror after consumption?  

There isnt room, what with all the health and legal warnings.   

Well, then I'm not surprised you're seeing double.   

downloading Photoshop Elements 12. its taking fucking hours. well 2 to be exact.

Just get gimp- its free, just as good and a lot less resource heavy.   

I use GIMP, too. Granted I'm not a graphic designer, but it has worked for my purposes.

I've been using GIMP for years now, and I have yet to hit a point where I think 'damn I cant do that in this program, wish I still had photoshop'.

GIMP comes with the Tyrant sea of Approval for not making me crabbit (and thats a rare thing).