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COMPOSTING

makes the invisible visible!  Collecting my kitchen and garden waste makes me aware of how much I generate and links me to the outside world that I am otherwise often insulated from.

I use the compost to feed the food that I grow.  Buying organic compost is not the same as knowing the fruits, weeds, vegetables, and manures that went into your garden.

RAISING CHICKENS

makes you aware of what goes into the eggs you eat and the lives that are affected by your consumption. I don't know if this reaction is universal, but it makes me more grateful for what goes into my mouth.  Did you know that chickens can be affectionate?  That they love wandering, rolling in dirt, and will eat all the bugs in your yard?  I didn't until I raised them.  Now imagine them living in a box!

 

 

Canning makes the invisible for me.  I see the food, I see the process, I see the effort, the water, the electricity, and the cleaning that go into the process.  I also see the waste and I know what is done with it.  At the end of the day, I know exactly what I am eating, where it came from and what was done to get it in my mouth.

MAKING YOURSELF VISIBLE:

Watch the following video for a laugh!

So, when someone "gets in trouble", we tend to put them away- in their room, in a military school, in a boy's ranch, in prison... but this guy had no intention of going away.  He did everything he could to stay present to us!  Then there's our dog, who has to let us know if there is a fly on the ceiling!  So much for being invisible in our house!

Hunting makes the invisible visible

 

Feeding a large family with healthy, organic, hormone-free, range-fed, additive -free, pesticide-free, and antibiotic-free foods involves either a large income or a lot of gardening, fishing, and hunting.  

We don't have a large income, so we garden, fish, and hunt.  Obtaining our own food through these methods makes the invisible visible for me, not only because I know what I am eating, but also because the fact that it is an amimal that I am eating could be no clearer.

It is easy to pick up a package of wrapped meat at the store.  It is easy to think of it as a packaged food.  For many people, meat is simply something they pick up at the grocery store, along with their napkins and candy bars.  But meat came from an animal.  It doesn't matter if you shot it yourself or if you let someone else do that for you.  It was still an animal.

When people hear that my husband got a deer, some of them turn up their noses as if it is gross to eat hunted meat.  What I want to know is, where exactly do they think the hamburger they ate yesterday came from?  Do they think it magically arrived in their paper sack?  It was an animal, it lived a life, it's life was taken, and it ended up as dinner.  We seem to have a sanitized way of life that makes it easy for us to forget that our vegetables and fruits are grown in dirt and manure and that our meat is slaughtered.  I think it becomes harder to remember the history of your food when you are eating a perfectly symmetrical, torpedo-shaped, individually wrapped hot dog.

 

When you have hunted an animal, you have to clean it up and process the meat.  You don't go to that kind of trouble unless you mean it.  It is a lot of work and the animal is very real to you.  Life becomes more visible and precious.  You feel grateful for the meat, you feel grateful to the animal, and you do not waste meat when you have been with it from animal to package.  Some people think it is barbaric to hunt.  I won't argue with that.  But is it more barbaric than supporting a commercial system that mistreats, abuses, and even tortures the animals destined to be eaten?  I don't think so.  While I don't advocate for people to hunt, fish, and garden, I feel good about it.  When I no longer feel that I want to be a part of hunting, hauling, cutting, cleaning, and wrapping meat, that is the day when I will become a vegetarian.  That time may very well come.  If it does, it won't be because I want someone else to do the work.  It will be because I don't want to eat anymore animals.

 

It tastes better, too!  And as a celiac, it is much safer than "minimally processed" store meats.

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