Living Deliberately
The Blood on my Hands and Choosing not to Look Away
I was standing in my yard yesterday, harvesting my dinner while listening to Walden on audiobook. When chapter 11 began, Henry David Thoreau discusses his own experience butchering. His time at Walden Pond was in the 1840s; even then, as now, he writes that most people don’t process their own food, start to finish.
He struggles with meat and the nature of killing for food, describing meat and hunting as dirty and savage, clearly having strong views about it.
On a couple of occasions, my mountaintop adventures have been compared to Thoreau’s time at Walden Pond. Though he was certainly more philosophical, touching more on social issues of his time, I can see the similarity from a logistical and motivational standpoint. I find the comparison flattering.
Here’s the most famous quote from Walden;
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Before I had an attention span for wordy books like Walden, back when I was still working in the trades, the phrase ‘Live Deliberately’ resonated with me. The thought of living with intention and being more connected to the natural world around me became a goal, and led me to where I am, and the things I do today.
One of my hens watched me from a distance, hoping for some offal. I threw her a little kidney.
It’s worth noting that Thoreau wasn’t a vegetarian.
The first time I tried to abstain from eating meat, I was a teenager. Food options weren’t very diverse in my small town, and I didn’t last six months before I felt weak and needed to go back to meat. The second time, as an adult, I was doing all of the right things. I was still lacking energy and grumpy after only a couple of weeks. Though it works for some, it clearly doesn’t work for me.
There I was, knife in hand, doing exactly the thing he struggled with. I thought,
‘That’s distancing yourself and putting yourself above nature.’
I worked around a finicky little bone (the clavicle) and thought about how much easier it would have been for me to grab a 9-dollar pack of chicken at the grocery store. No mess, no fuss. Food without a face in a styrofoam package.
I stopped for a moment to watch Luci the cat stalking something.
If she captures it, it won’t have a quick ending like my dinner had. That’s cats, and that’s the natural world we’re part of. We don’t hate cats for liking what they like. (Even if it is horrible)
Our relationship with domestic animals is interdependent. Neither of us live a good life without the other. My chickens need a coop, my ducks come to me for food, and when the rabbits have escaped, they don’t leave. They need me, and I need them.
A whiskey jack waits patiently in the trees for the scraps, while keeping a keen eye on Luci.
