Tom carried my bird to the killing area. “He must weigh forty pounds, good Lord!” he said. I felt a hint of what being a real meat farmer must feel like. Grown Vermont men were patting this twenty-six-year-old kid on the back for raising a fine bird. Tom tied up TD by the feet; he didn’t seem to fight it. As Tom went to grab his knife for the final act, I felt no need to brace myself. I trusted these neighbors and farmers completely.
In one swift motion of a sharp knife, Tom removed TD’s head from his body and tossed it into the gut pit. I watched the dead head’s mouth open and close while the body tossed around for a few final moments of firing synapses and squirting blood. It was in no way enjoyable to watch, but not upsetting. He had had a good life and a quick ending. Being instantly beheaded sure beats being ripped apart by a fox or run over by a truck.
In about ten minutes, TD went from a flapping white-and-red mess to basically what you see before your dinner goes into the oven. After he was scalded and defeathered, all that was left to do was to cut off the legs at the knee joints, pull out the viscera, and use some pliers to pull out the toughest of the tail feathers. Tom left the largest pinfeather on my bird’s butt, so I would know exactly which of the carcasses was mine. To be of some use, I helped carry some recently prepared turkeys up to the farmhouse and picked over my bird. Mrs. Pickering, who did all the carcass detailing at the house, helped me look for stray feathers and other detritus from the butchering process. She was polite but seemed a little put off by the fact that I felt the need to use their staff to kill my own turkey instead of buying one of her birds.
Even though I was raising my own turkey, I was glad the Pickerings kept their small farm going, to help supply the area with local meat. I wanted to be a part of creating a sustainable food supply, and here in the more rugged parts of the Northeast, that meant meat and milk. There were plenty of local vegetables around, even a tofu factory up in the Northeast Kingdom, but in southwestern Vermont and eastern New York, dairy and meat were king. Within ten miles of my cabin, I could buy grass-fed beef, free-ranging pork, and pastured poultry. My local food economy was as much based on meat as it was on vegetables. If I wanted the small farms around me to survive, I needed to support them.
That power of the dollar was a huge reason I wanted to consider eating meat again. I felt that if I wanted to change how animals were being harvested for food, I’d better start voting with my paycheck and buying meat from responsible small farmers. Every dollar I spent at a local farm was another dollar that didn’t go to support the cruelty of factory farms. As a Buddhist I still felt a heavy responsibility to avoid the suffering of sentient beings whenever possible. But I was beginning to understand that for me, abstaining from meat was less an act of kindness than it was a symbolic act that simply made me feel more Buddhist. It didn’t in the least help the animals being raised in those horrid factories.
So I, the sole vegephile in the family, was okay with the fate of this particular turkey. I had raised it from a poult. I’d watched it live out its short life, and I was there to escort it to and assist in its slaughter. Now the bird, all twenty-eight pounds of it, was on ice in my freezer, awaiting the trip to my family’s dinner table. I, the sappy liberal of the family, felt no guilt and suffered no emotional quandaries. So, of course, I assumed everyone else would be okay with it, too.
They were not.
When I told my family that I would be bringing home the turkey and would help roast it for Thanksgiving dinner, the other end of the phone line went slack. My mother was starting to feel uncomfortable with my homegrown bird — I think because she thought it would be unsanitary. Her assumption that my bird was not as healthy as a store-bought one is a testament to advertising, the sway of suburbia, and the huge distance from food you know by name. But in the end, my mother could set aside her concerns and nibble on TD. It was my sister who drew the line in the sand. She would not attend dinner if I brought to the table a bird she had met in person. This was not to be debated. It was the turkey or my sister.
I tried putting my foot down. I explained that I was bringing it and she would have to get over it. I was not going to waste this bird, and I told her I thought she was being ridiculous. She was in no way concerned about how Butterball turkeys were raised and had no problem eating them. To her these factory animals were so removed and so distant, a throng of meat mass she would never hear gobble, that eating them was less like eating meat and more like eating turkey-flavored protein globs. But I, I had killed an animal — an animal she’d seen strut past my cabin door a few months before. To her, this made her complicit in a murder.
Much arguing ensued. The family was split into pro-turkey and anti-turkey sides. My brother, father, and brother-in-law were for the farm bird; my sister and mother were adamantly for its staying in the North Country. My sister thought it was just plain creepy, and my mother cared less about the animal than she did about the possibility that her now far-flung family wouldn’t be sharing a holiday. She didn’t care if we all ate Chinese takeout, as long as we did it as a unit. My feed-store whim was about to separate us on a high Woginrich holiday. When I continued to try to persuade them to see the free-range light, my mom sighed into the phone and said, “You know what, Jenna? You win. We’ve decided to kill the dog and eat him for Thanksgiving dinner. Happy?”
In the end, I caved. I traded the giant frozen turkey for a sheepherding lesson. A week before I headed home to suburban Pennsylvania, I stopped at a sheep farm in Massachusetts to hand my trainer, Denise, the spoils of my summer. That Thanksgiving I would be eating Tofurky, again.
A NOTE ON THE DOOR
FARMING IS A BEAUTIFUL THING, but it takes a lot out of you. It’s not so much the actual labor but rather the relentless responsibilities that do it. My humble little backyard farm was a constant commitment that rarely granted me the chance to travel, even for an overnight jaunt into Pennsylvania to see my family. Fortunately, whenever I really needed to be away for a weekend — for things like holidays and weddings — I could ask my neighbor Casey to look after the animals while I was MIA. He’d feed the sheep their hay, throw down scratch for the chickens, put pellets in the rabbit feeders, and make sure everyone had water. Having a neighbor who doesn’t mind playing farmer and who lives within earshot of your farm is a handy resource. I felt lucky to have him. So when I left for Thanksgiving weekend with a pile of hay on the porch and a note on the door for him, I felt the animals would be well cared for. This was his fifth or sixth time watching over my menagerie, and the routine had become old hat for us both. I planned on surprising him with a gift certificate to Home Depot when I returned. He hated accepting payment for the farm chores, but I thought it was high time he knew how much I appreciated his effort.
After being away for three days, I was looking forward to being back on the farm. When I arrived home that Sunday, the sheep heckled, the goat nickered, the chickens clucked. All seemed well — at least until I got to the front door.
Pinned to the door was a typed letter and what appeared to be several pamphlets. I picked up the note, expecting it to be some detailed list of possible improvements or feeding regimens. Casey was really organized and had been known to install chicken coop doors and fix fences while I was gone. But this was no list. This was a very angry letter.
It started out with “I am disappointed and disgusted at the state of the animals and the property …” and went on to explain how horrible I had been to my livestock and to his friend’s house. He indicated that changes would need to be made to the cabin and its backyard. No animal breeding, no additional building, and (he assumed, pretty bold for not being my landlord) all nonapproved animals would have to go. My heart pounded in my chest. This was a shock to me. In almost two and a half years of knowing me and watching the farm grow, not once had he come down on me like this. I noticed that Benjamin, my male Angora rabbit, was missing from the porch. Did he steal my rabbit? Was he holding him hostage? I read on. He accused me of neglect and abuse. The attache
d literature was on “proper” rabbit care and his letter explained that he had “rescued him.” He said the yard was covered in feces, and the well water was probably poisoned, too. The letter explained how the animals had to go, and things had to change, that he had spoken to my landlord at length and I should expect a call. I started tearing up. Then I did the worst possible thing. I called him.
Like a beaten animal, I took his condemning words and even apologized. (Looking back, it was ridiculous that I admitted any sort of wrongdoing by apologizing, but I was upset and in “damage-control” mode.) I wanted him to understand why I did things around the farm the way I did. He said all the neighbors agreed with him but didn’t want to say anything. Now I was really worked up. I was bawling into the phone, barely getting apologies and fears out of my mouth, terrified that I’d be run out of town and that the whole time I’d been falling in love with the cabin and with Sandgate, the whole community thought I was a monster. Logic flew out of my head. When I got off the phone, I called my landlord. I was still a mess.
“Did you talk to him?” my landlord asked, giving me the impression she wished I hadn’t. “He has a tendency to over-react … listen, just listen. Jenna.” And in what was to me the tone of a saint, she explained that she wasn’t angry, nor did she think I abused animals, but the controversy was too much. Casey was an animal-rights activist, and after watching the animals this particularly rainy and cold weekend, he believed that the chicken manure, mud, wet animals, and caged rabbits were victims of a negligent part-time farmer.
My landlord was Casey’s friend, and eventually, when she moved back to the cabin full time, she would be Casey’s neighbor, so the last thing she wanted to do was anger him. She went on to explain that she’d never wanted the place to be a farm, that things had gotten out of hand. I started to recite the laundry list of green lights and okays I had gotten from both her and Casey. After all, her angry friend had helped me build sheep sheds and convert sheds to chicken coops. I wasn’t thinking straight. Fear rolled into anger.
She told me to calm down but to start planning to change things a little. The goat, rabbits, and Saro’s recent hatching of five goslings had to go. Those were animals I had taken in without her direct consent. All that was allowed to stay on the farm were the sheep, the two dogs in the original lease, and the chickens. I did the telephone equivalent of nodding, saying “Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Of course,” trying to get the awful night of phone conversations over with.
She also asked me to vacate the cabin by spring (she was moving back for remodeling), and although I had a few months to find a new home for the dogs, sheep, chickens, and me, I would have to remove the fugitive animals immediately. She said she’d be in Sandgate the following weekend, and we could talk more in person if we needed to.
I would be ready.
I took a very long breath.
It took awhile to compose myself. When I did, I was officially livid. How dare that man steal my rabbit? Did he really think I was being abusive? The rabbit had a long coat that was matted in the back and his toenails needed clipping. He looked a little homely, sure, but I wasn’t about to shear an outdoor rabbit’s wool in winter on account of vanity. The mats could wait until spring. And while his cage wasn’t winning any home and garden prizes, his hutch was still twice the size of what was required by state code.
I was no longer feeling like a girl with her tail tucked between her legs. I’d had property stolen, been accused of neglect, and been libeled in my new hometown. I felt I needed to defend my choices and my lifestyle. I didn’t like that I was being perceived as a terrible farmer, and I really didn’t like that this was the first time I was hearing about it. You’d think that if I were the talk of the town as a livestock abuser, someone would have subtly brought it up before I found it nailed to my front door.
As if the note weren’t enough, thinking he was acting in the animals’ best interest, my neighbor had “made improvements” that turned out to be downright dangerous. He’d lengthened the goat’s tie-out, not knowing that I’d measured the chain to be just short enough to keep him from climbing over the rusty garden gate and hanging himself and also short enough to avoid the poisonous oak leaves in the opposite direction.
Everything I did at the farm had a reason. Long, matted coats were warmer than shorter combed ones. Old bedding under hooves might look ugly, but it kept livestock warm. Rabbits lived in cages to protect them from predators and keep their footprint small. The farm was just that — a farm. It was not a petting zoo or a set from Colonial Williamsburg. It was a place to produce food and animals for sale. Neighbors who had one dog or a couple of cats and didn’t raise livestock got concerned and confused about the state of the place because it wasn’t what they imagined a cottage farm to look like. There were no white picket fences or show ponies. My animals weren’t living in a faded red barn like they do in your childhood memories. Rabbits were bred and sold, chickens were raised for eggs, roosters pooped on the lawn, and the sheep had walked the grass in their pen down to mud. It was never going to be on the cover of a magazine, but it was a real farm.
I sat down and typed an eight-page letter of explanation about how I farm. I would not have myself known as an abuser of the animals I had made a part of my life, my family. I would give a copy of the letter to any neighbor who wanted more information or thought I was doing something wrong. In phone calls with Casey and conversations with other neighbors (most wanted to stay out of it and had no comment), it became clear that they thought things like deep bedding the goat pen (a practice of laying fresh straw over soiled straw, to create heat and make compost when the older straw decomposes) was me being too lazy to clean the pen. I explained the length of the goat chain, the method of chicken bedding, refuted claims I was poisoning the well and destroying the property by homesteading on it. Rubbish, all of it!
I was proud of the little manifesto. It showed that I was well aware of their assumptions about me, but it also made clear that they were just that: assumptions. I hoped that by educating them, I would at least clear my name in the eyes of other animal lovers. That was the real damage control. I had no control over staying in the cabin; it wasn’t my property. But I could save face.
That same neighbor who’d helped me build sheep sheds and mend fences was no longer the friendly man I remembered. He had lent me the rabbit cage but felt that it was too small for Benjamin now and wouldn’t return it if he was going to live in it. It wasn’t worth getting the police or anyone else involved because of the stolen rabbit. So when I e-mailed him that a new cage was on the porch and asked him to return my animal, he showed up with him a few hours later. Words were terse, and I said if he was really concerned about my animals, why not call animal control and have them assess the joint? I was joking, of course.
He wasn’t. He called the police on me.
The following weekend, when Annie and I were returning home from taking a load of trash to the dump, I pulled back onto the private road that leads to the cabin and was surprised to see a large gray truck pulling out of my driveway. Ignoring it as a local who needed a place to turn around on the dead-end road, I drove past and parked the truck among the welcome clucks and honks of my poultry. In the rear-view mirror I could see that the gray truck had turned around again and was now pulling up beside me. A man in his late fifties, with an air of authority and a serious look on his face, jumped out and walked toward me. “Can I help you, sir?” I asked. Annie sat quietly by my side, tail wagging, on her leash. The man flashed his badge and introduced himself as a sheriff in Arlington, the next town over. He was here on animal-control duty.
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. But I remained politely stoic.
He said he had spent the better part of an hour walking around the farm and checking on the animals. He said an anonymous complaint came in from a neighbor and then listed the litany of accusations: that I kept rabbits in tiny cages; that the property was littered with feces; that my sheep had no bedding; that my go
at was in a cage that was too small (and also without proper bedding); and that I kept two huskies in cages all day.
He told me I had nothing to worry about. The animals, the farm, and the property were fine. The size of my rabbit cages was well above the minimum requirements of state law, the sheep had clean straw bedding, the goat was healthy and well kept, and my dog didn’t look abused to him. I invited him inside to show him a clean house without cages or chains, and when I opened the front door, Jazz walked out to greet us. He petted Jazz, scratched Annie’s ears, told me he was closing the complaint, and said he was sorry about the hassle. He shook his head, saying it was a shame to see places like this being called in to the police, that people who complain about a pile of chicken shit on a doorstep don’t have any idea what horrible abuses he witnesses every day. He said if all animals on farms were as well kept as mine, he wouldn’t even have a job as an animal-control officer. He said that most complaints about farm-animal welfare came from people with cats and dogs, not livestock, who didn’t understand the difference between a goat pen and a dog kennel.
I felt all of my livestock deserved to be on grass and in sunlight, well fed, and kept safe from weather and predators, but this wasn’t some sort of farm-beast day spa. These weren’t pets, they were dinner. And if they weren’t dinner, they were providers of future sweaters, or pack animals, or weed control, or garden pollinators. Before he left he gave me his home number and said to call if anyone complained about my farm again. He wished me a Merry Christmas and was on his way.
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