Meat



Mr. Winker at the range

Every November the hunters in my life come to my heart in full force.  I think of my father mostly.  He is a hunter in every sense of the word and last year I wrote a bit about him in my Sense of Place post.  When I was just a tweeny pup I signed up for hunter's safety class with my dad.  I HATED it.  I despised the idea of killing and couldn't seem to keep my eyes open in class.  Somehow I convinced my "never quit" parents to allow me to do just that and I stopped going.  My dad's hopes of having a daughter to hunt with quickly disappeared and I'm quite certain I rolled my eyes about it.
 I was gifted a year of Animal's Agenda magazine that I hoarded in my closet and read and sobbed over the images that came to me in the mail each month vowing never to harm an animal ever, never ever.  Most of my high school years were spent being a horribly nutrient poor vegetarian while my mother smothered me with protein consisting of peanut butter sandwiches and Carnation Instant Breakfast.  I would walk through the woods behind our home and urinate underneath the tree stands while my father wondered where all the deer had gone.  I remember many fits when I would come down stairs in the morning and see a gun sitting by the back door where my dad had just taken a rabbit or a squirrel.  There were many tears.  I didn't understand how he could be so uncaring for the animals and I'm sure he couldn't understand how he ended up having a daughter with my beliefs. 
  Fast forward 12 years well into my pregnancy with Arlo.  I had the unquenchable craving for meat like an itch that couldn't be scratched - particularly roast beef.  Certainly I was lacking in protein and nutrients and my body was begging for a bone.  After many days of struggling with this craving I broke down and drove through Hardees asking how many roast beefs I could get for a handful of change.  It was not my best moment, inhaling fast food in the parking lot with a growing baby in my belly!  I have since fully recovered from my vegetarianism days.
  Fast forward a few more years and here I am, a farmer raising pastured non GMO chickens.  I have found a middle road with meat.  I like to eat it, I enjoy it and I like to take care of my animals so they are healthier and happier before they are in my belly. 


410 shotgun - oldie but a goodie

  A couple years ago we had a red squirrel problem.  Our loyal mutt Scout was a great squirrel taker-care-ofer but there was one that she couldn't quite manage and we enjoyed watching their shenanigans.  One day, we came home to half of the siding ripped off of the house where the squirrel went in and the dog went after.  There was Scout, sitting under that tree just waiting for the squirrel to come down.  The thought came to me "get the gun".  Craig looked at me briefly then realized that I was totally serious-he had NEVER seen me shoot a gun and knew I wasn't a hunting fan etc...but he acted quickly before I changed my mind.  He grabbed the 410 and I aimed quick and one shot later the job was done.  Now, I'm by no means saying that I didn't feel bad for that squirrel, I really did.  BUT I felt a new feeling to, a feeling that I had done something that helped my family in a small way.  The dog ate the squirrel and the siding quickly went back up and that was that.  I killed an animal and thank goodness it was a good shot.  As a girl I had taken a shot into the cedar at my grandparent's in Iowa when my brother taunted me that I could never kill a bird (he got $0.05/bird).  After enough pestering, I grabbed the gun and shot at a noise only to maim a young sparrow that my dad had to put down for me. 

hunter's safety 2015

  It wasn't more than a couple years later that I decided to give hunter's safety another shot (no pun intended but haha, that was a good one!).  What an awesome thing that my father was my teacher!  We had a blast (again, haha) I learned a lot and didn't feel so afraid of guns.  I outshot my father on the range...twice and maybe, just maybe I'll get a turkey tag this fall.  Maybe just maybe I'll get a deer tag this fall...maybe next year.  Somehow I feel a little closer to feeling comfortable with putting some meat in my freezer but it is all the in between that I worry about.  The possible suffering is enough to cause me to pause.  I think that hunting is more of a ceremony, much more than just killing.  I really like the video from The Ways is a really great perspective helping you see the hunt differently, more deeply.
 

Caleb doing his thing at the river

This weekend is Caleb's first deer hunt.  He took class with his grandpa and cousin last year and has taken to the fields for geese and ducks but not deer.  This is my boy who rarely keeps a fish and had pockets full of live things as a child.  Craig fondly remembers him picking a wood tick out of the toilet to let it go outside.  I also have a memory, not a soft one, where he made a huge spider's web in our backyard out of sewing string and accidentally caught a bird.  At first he was excited but it became clear that the bird was going to die as it became so entangled.  We both cried and cried.  He is a lover with a huge heart but he is also a boy watching his elders go out to the hunt and bring meat home for their families.  It probably helped him commit to the hunt when his cousin tagged his first deer last week.  So off my first baby goes into the woods with my dad and the tradition, ritual continues. 
As a mom I think lots of things.  I hope he has a great time, I hope he sees deer and if he decides to take a shot that it's a good one and if it's not...that it doesn't break his heart.  But he is with the best person that could handle any situation that could possibly present itself on a hunt, my father.

The Flame

Every ending has a beginning as does every middle.  All projects start with a spark and many are never tended into a flame.  Dying embers flit away and in wisps of smoke. The spoken "tell me the story about when..." can be followed by eruptions of laughter and wet sobbing tears.  This is the story of our living flame Vespertine Gardens.

My husband and I met at a bar.  We were set up by mutual friends and it was love at first sight for me.  I knew quickly that he was "the one" and it didn't take much convincing before he agreed.  He was fresh off the Appalachian Trail, living in Oregon but visiting family in town and I was in the midst of single parenting while working and going to school full-time for nursing.  Our lives were both in chaos but the spark never left.  He returned a year later to be closer to his mother who was diagnosed with lung cancer and took up soil science studies at UWSP.  We reconnected and our relationship moved quickly.  Much of our time dating was spent dreaming, of our future and telling stories of our past.  The ember glowed bigger and bigger until it was a farm we were dreaming of and then a farm with children.  Our farm setting idea took place initially anywhere but Wisconsin and quickly came closer and closer until we were looking at land in our home county.
We found the perfect place.  Seriously, it doesn't get any more perfect for us than a farm surrounded by forest with a geodesic dome heated garage with a wood working shop, unique outbuildings made from Katrina wreckage and a solid wood beamed barn fit perfectly for horses.  It was like we each wrote down exactly what we wanted and poof, there it appeared.  At the peak of our price range but move-in ready.

Quickly, we rented out our current small in town home and moved in temporarily with Craig's parents thinking it would be a quick sale and we'd be celebrating Christmas in our new home.  The final step was the inspection which was a breeze initially.  The inspector actually looked like he was yawning at times, bored with the absence of drama.  It was so mundane that I left before it was over-missing the big bang: black mold.  The entire attic was snuggled beneath fuzzy blanket of black mold.  Interestingly the owners were moving south due to respiratory issues.  We could go through with the sale and deal with the mold aka: health hazard nightmare or we could move on with our dream.

Cue "everything happens for a reason".
In the midst of this, my mother-in-law Lynne's long battle with stage 4 lung cancer was coming to a close.  It was clear that her body was losing the fight and our focus shifted entirely from the home plans to being home with her as much as possible for her numbered last days.  I was working full time as a hospice nurse at the time and it was such a surreal time in my life to go from "working with death" to living with it.  We ate meals together, did our laundry together and played with my sons together.  She gave me lessons in sewing and baking and how to just be good with it all.  It was an absolutely amazing time in my life.  We made some of my most favorite memories and we were all there with her as her spirit slipped away.  She died a good death.  Surrounded by those who loved her and were loved by her the most.  We are walking family trees and her cells live on in my youngest son and daughter.
We know that we were meant to be living with her for those handful of months.  We wouldn't trade any dream property for those memories we made.  As the healing began and the dust started to settle, the ember of our farming dream stoked again only this time it had ideas of its own.  In her last days, Lynne and her parents spoke to us about living on the homestead where she grew up and bringing the land back to farming.  It was her wish that we would raise our children and erect our farming dream there on a small patch of fertile vesper silt loam soil.

the soil quickly became a part of us

I remember driving to the property for the first time after the opportunity was presented to us and having a hard time envisioning how we would turn 3 acres of pristine lawn into a visionary, functioning farm.  The farm had historically raised 7 daughters and tons of green beans as well as a bustling family garden.  It took, vision, perseverance, hard labor and help from family and friends for a handful of years to get the soil working and producing. I worked full time off the farm so Craig could work full time on the farm and every penny earned was spent on implements and such.  We named our farm Vespertine Gardens and now 6 years later we have completed 5 successful years as CSA farmers of organically grown veggies and pastured non-GMO chickens.  Vespertine means "things that bloom at night" and our dreams of this farm all started with just that-night time dreaming together while young in our relationship with little ones finally asleep.   Our daughter Aida was born on the living room floor a few short months after moving here.  She solidified any doubt we ever had that we were meant to be here on this land, living this life.  The flame of our farming existence is burning bright and we are devoting ourselves to a winter of rekindled dreaming.