Reality Bites

So here I am again. Blogging about the same thing that I blogged about last time. Basically an issue that has really been bothering me. But I think I have found a decent conclusion to it now and made the tough decision to walk away from it. I say it is tough because I wanted to believe in a fairy tale that did not exist, once again hoping for the good in someone’s intentions but feeling let down when that good was simply not there.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I follow(ed) a small farm community online and truly enjoyed the love and devotion displayed towards her beloved chickens and other animals. But this illusion was shattered when she publically displayed her blood-lust towards a weasel that killed some of her chickens. This just did not sit well with me. It was like a contradiction of who she was portraying herself to be. Here is this woman putting dresses on her injured chickens and cuddling them like babies, treating all of her animals like family members, and then she reveals that her animal love is conditional. She has no problem spilling the blood of predators who are simply behaving like nature intended them to. And she has no problem being graphically sadistic about it. So that contradiction changed how I felt about her. I began to see her as not quite the gentle animal-lover I had believed her to be. But I still liked her anecdotes about her animals and I enjoyed watching her farm grow and progress as she added horses, goats and turkeys to her menagerie.

I hoped maybe she would have a change of heart on the predators and maybe realize she was wrong. After all, she did receive some feedback from readers who were upset with her blood-lust, and in a later incident with raccoons she didn’t make such an issue out of it and did state they would be relocated rather than slaughtered. So I hoped things would be better as I really liked her writing style and her witty banter steeped in a combination of pop culture and literacy.

However, there now stands an incident where there is no turning back for me.

The other day she made an announcement that she was taking orders on her turkeys for Thanksgiving!

Say what??

Are these the same turkeys she lovingly took endless photos of, wrote cute little stories about, developed their personalities (to the delight of us readers), and gave names to? She mothered these birds, she clearly came across as though they were FAMILY members! Or was that my own incorrect assumption? Perhaps it is normal to treat animals you plan to murder with such familial ties?

I don’t think so.

There is something very, very wrong about this situation. 

I called her out on it. I commented that I did not realize she was going to kill the turkeys! I had thought they were pets like the other animals…or perhaps I am wrong about them too? 

Her response was that if they were not bred for meat then the breed would die out as people have no use for them as pets. I then did a little online research and discovered many anti-kill farms keep these turkeys as barnyard pets. I mentioned that to her but she refused to budge on her stance. And that’s fine, she can do whatever she wants. But I am left feeling rather blindsided about who she is.

I then decided to leave her community permanently. There just is no other way. And I was going to send her a message of peace and hope but then I saw she had posted an open letter on her wall, directed at me, without naming me specifically. But it was very much directed at me. This is what she posted:

“A NOTE TO READERS.
Hi. Welcome. Glad to have you here. Please, make yourself to home. That said...

More and more, we are farm, not a zoo. My concentration, going forward, will be raising food-producing animals, giving them the best possible lives, as an end unto itself, and also to produce the best possible food.
If you choose to be a strict vegan, God bless you. That's a great choice, but it is not a choice for everyone. If you choose to consume dairy and eggs thinking you are not contributing to the torture and death of animals, you're not seeing the whole picture. Even if every drop of milk and every egg you buy and consume was produced by animals living in the lap of luxury, animals were slaughtered to produce it.
I know, I know. A huge veil was lifted from my eyes when I realised the fates of (abundant, unwanted) male chickens and dairy animals. I thought being a vegetarian was preventing animal death, and then I learned: the consumption of animal meat goes hand in hand with eggs and dairy, and will continue to do so, until the day Mother Nature decides to pop out a more favourable male/female ratio when she procreates. If we're facing our food, here, and I strive to face my food, squarely, without flinching, we need to face that.
I do not eat meat. I have not eaten meat for 17 years, which I believe gives me a little cred. I do not judge (and have never judged) those who do, and I am making it my mission to produce meat from animals who live, and die, as humanely as possible. I may even eat meat again someday, but that's another story. For now, I strive to be part of the solution of the CAFO problem, and not turn the blind eye I felt my vegetarianism granted me.
All this to say, if it upsets you to read about the slaughter of animals for meat, or the steps we take to protect our livestock, this might not be the page for you. I hope you stick around. I just wanted to be very clear about my mission here.
Peace out.”

So that was me told. 

And this is her farm to do with as she wishes, to treat animals however she desires. 

And no, I am not a vegan or a vegetarian although I would like to be. And I like to feel I am heading in that direction. But I could not befriend an animal and then kill it. I do feel terrible guilt about eating animals or animal products. And this has given me a well-needed push to go in the vegan direction a little faster.

But what bothers me here is failing to understand how she can dote on her animals like pets and then turn around and kill them. It is unsettling. How she treats predators should have been a red flag. But she gushes with such love and joy towards her animals that it defies reason to think that she could slaughter them. 

I made it clear to her by posting my own farewell. I stated I had no interest in changing her mind on the choices she makes, but I had to leave because she was not who I believed she was and everything about her farm was too much of a contradiction for me. Of course she deleted my comment even though it was said in complete kindness. She obviously does not want any other readers to see my words and think about her actions not being consistent with her behaviours.

Sigh. I have to put it all behind me now. Which is often hard for me to do as I have such a hard time walking away from someone or something that I loved or cared about. And I did care about her farm, I had come to delight in her posts and adorable photos of her seemingly worshipped animals.

I have gained wisdom from this experience though, one more moment of growth in the greater journey.

And my hope for her is that she looks at herself and asks herself why she is ok with the death of any animal, be it either pet or predator, on her hands. What does that say about who she is?

Winona was right. Reality bites.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

That is a rather biblical title. And I am anything but biblical, in fact I am completely non-religious. However, what I do believe in is the basic message behind most religions…kindness, love and compassion. And that extends to animals as well as people.

This past week has been rather lacking in compassion in the world. Just like when Bin Laden was killed, people have taken to celebrating and partying in the streets over the recent death of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. This is so disturbing to me. There is already such a nasty lack of compassion in our world, which we see constantly, so when a large scale outpouring of hate erupts so publically it just reminds me of where far too many people’s heads are at. And it is scary. Because that is what is being taught to children. And what does that mean for the future?

This lacking in compassion is coming out of even the most unlikely people. I have a former friend in Canada who is a small scale farmer. She keeps chickens for eggs and she is a vegetarian. She preaches kindness and is a gentle sort of person. So imagine my surprise when she showed a new side of herself and advocated killing an innocent animal. It is not what I expected at all.

She had been losing chickens to a sneaky raccoon. Not just killing her chickens to eat, but a bloodbath of a slaughter. She was understandably upset and set a trap for the raccoon. I thought I knew her so well. But I realized I did not truly know her at all when I asked her where they would be relocating the raccoon to. Her normally calm and gentle manner was replaced by a person I did not recognize. “Relocation?? Straight to HELL! I want it DEAD!” Those were the words snarled from my kind, sweet, vegetarian friend.

Ok, I understand seeing the chickens murdered brutally would be deeply upsetting. But why want death for another animal? An animal that was only following instinct? Did my friend just pretend to be a person of kindness? How can you be a person of kind heart and also want to call for death of an innocent animal? Or dance in the street to celebrate a leader who has died simply because you did not agree with her politics? It is all the same thinking. Very skewed thinking.

It does not make sense to me and our friendship nose dived after that…I began to see many more instances where she lacked in compassion and it was as if once she had let me peek inside the “real” person she is, she no longer cared to pretend. Which is too bad, because it makes it really hard for me to be friends with someone I don’t respect. And she lost my respect when she so easily wanted that raccoon killed.

I saw another instance of someone wanting a predator killed this week. Someone who’s farming blog I followed and really enjoyed. I felt horrible for her when she lost some of her own precious chickens to a weasel. But once again, I was surprised to discover she did not extend any compassion to the weasel. She came across so gentle and in love with her animals…but that is where the love ended. She only loves HER animals. And wants death and a dance on the grave of any other animal that may mess with HER animals. Relocation in a live trap for the weasel could have been done...but she posted she was happy it suffered when it died and she wanted to chop it up and feed it to the chickens.

Although I did not know this person personally, it was just another highlighted example of where true feelings lie and that even people who act like they love animals and have good hearts, show a different side to themselves when the chips are down.

The people who treat animals in this way are giving a very bad message to children or to people reading their words who may look up to them. It all starts with bloodlust of a raccoon or a weasel and from that will come a crowd who dances when someone hated dies.

There should be no “eye for an eye”. No killing or celebrating death. Yet these are the values and morals that so many people are teaching their kids by their own actions and behaviours. Children will mirror this way of thinking and those of us with a voice of love will find it harder and harder to be heard above the war cries and the cheering for death.

I don’t want compassion to be lost but the best I can do right now, is set the right example for my own. And send hope to those who just haven’t “gotten it” yet.