Tag Archives: Cows

There are days…

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People sometimes ask me why I tell people when I fail. Frankly, it would be easy not to tell anyone when things to wrong. It would be easy to lull people into a false impression that the life I live is somehow, distant, idyllic, and trouble-free.

It would also be a lie.

In fact, that lie is at the core of a lot of things I see wrong with how we moderns live. Governments, corporations, and our own fancies have convinced us that we live in a world that should be sterile and secure from risk, want, or danger when reality could not be further from that conviction.

So, I choose to speak to reality. Like today, when a series of miscues resulted in the two bulls I was taking to the butcher escaping and vanishing. Yes, I said vanishing. No one can find them. I spent all day trying to track them down with no success. We just had $4400 worth of animals escape and disappear into thin air.

And that fact does not deter me. Yes, it is a setback. Yes, I am going to have to figure out how to replace that income. Yes, those two loose bulls still represent a liability until they are caught or killed. But none of that means I am a failure.

I believe the best measure of a person is how that person responds to adversity. Decades ago, I chose perseverance because, from my view, what is the point of life otherwise?. And that’s why I choose to share my failures, so that other people can see that it’s okay to fail and that life goes on.

Now, to find me a couple of missing by cows…

DLH

Cows in the yard!

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They were invited, though.

It’s my first attempt at some pasture management in the form of using the cows to mow some grass that we’d otherwise have to burn gas to get rid of. The cows seem to be taking it all in stride, although one of our dogs wants to have a conniption because the cows are where they’re not supposed to be.

Right now, we have them contained with a double strand of electric fence powered by a solar energizer. My eventual goal is to add line fence to the perimeter of the yard area so that we can graze animals throughout it instead of mowing. Such practices can’t help but reduce our costs, our reliance on fossil fuels, and our dependence on machines.

Plus, it’s fun to watch.

DLH

Never again

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I went to the stock auction today because Keba and I hauled our calves there over the past couple of days and I wanted to see for myself what their business was all about.

I will never take my animals there or buy animals from them again.

We took nine perfectly healthy, vibrant young calves to that place, where the people who run it proceeded to give them a battery of sixteen different shots, antibiotics, and tests then to sedate them so that they would behave in the auction ring. From there, those poor little ones are probably destined for a feed lot somewhere where as many as half of them will die from sickness, overcrowding, or malnutrition before they end up as meat in a grocery store or restaurant near you, full of a year’s worth of drugs and food they were not designed to eat.

I understand that I raise cattle for food, but my goal from the first moment I set myself to that task is to do so as morally and humanely as possible. What they do at the stock yard is wrong and I will have no more part in it. I would rather stop raising cows and go back into information technology than knowingly participate in a process that robs humans and animals alike of their essence.

Instead, I will humanely raise only the number animals I can sell directly to the people who will consume them as food. I will control my herd to ensure its numbers, and I will never give my cows drugs in order to increase their size or the density of the herd.

I understand that death is part of the harsh reality of food production, but it will be death under circumstances that I control, and my animals will not suffer years of torment before they die.

I also want all of you to think about what I am saying. Yes, we can feed ourselves cheaply and efficiently by going to big box groceries, but at what cost? When we make that kind of choice, we reduce ourselves to essentially the same fate as those nine calves: eating food that makes us sick and then pumped full of drugs to compensate for it.

I understand that what I am suggesting here is reactionary and revolutionary, but it is my understanding of history and human nature that it often takes both in order for change to happen. I pledge that I will no longer be part of the problem. How about you?

DLH