HappyDay: ‘Slaughter Day’
Casey O’Neill is a cannabis and food farmer in Mendocino County who has been writing newsletters about his efforts to provide sustainable produce and marijuana. We feature his column once a week.
Slaughter day has come and gone, with all the attendant emotion that it carries. We said goodbye to Hammy, feeling the intensity of the moment. One instant he was napping in the sun and then we held his body as he shuddered and he passed out of this life.
To hold an animal steady as life slips away is a primal experience, both grounding and shattering. This dichotomy is fundamental and inseparable. We will be grateful for the nourishment he will provide, and we are grateful for our time with him.
I carried more trepidation into this slaughter day than I have in the past, and I’ve been reflecting on it and trying to decipher the range of feelings. We have grown to love these Kune-kunes for their mellowness, unlike any other pigs we have raised. Hammy was the biggest of the three and was especially low-key and mild.
Caring for animals engenders a deep respect and love, a sense of duty and ministry. In following the journey to the end of life and into sustenance that begets further life, we travel a pathway that has been worn down through millenia. We hold reverence for the process, offering thanks and gratitude for the life that we take.
I knew the experience would be difficult, but I was surprised to find it also calming, and I’m still trying to unpack. I wonder to myself about my ability to engage and to feel without breaking down, to experience without excess. I had expected overwhelming sadness, and though I felt it, it did not possess me. I wonder now about my constitution and the journey that I undergo as a farmer.
Have I become hardened to death in a way that makes me feel less, or have I become accepting of death in a way that transmutes the feeling of shattering loss into reverence and calm? I’m not sure of the answer, and it’s clear that there is space for meditation and reflection in this question, boiling down to the essence of husbandry.
We had assistance in the slaughter from our friend Jim, a man of great quality and character. He has been trained in the art of slaughtering and butchering, and he carries a calm that inspires those around him. His manner imputes reverence and deep reflection, he sets an example that I admire and strive to emulate.
One of the fundamental joys of community is the sense of mutual admiration that it engenders in each of us. There is such love exchanged when we appreciate each other for the gifts that we represent, and it is out of this shared love that we form the relationships that carry us through good times and bad.
We celebrate birth and the milestones of life, and though we mourn we also do well to celebrate in death. The closure to life is a necessary bookend that provides definition unto the rest of the journey. It is in the knowledge of the surety of death that some of the beauty and reverence for life is fostered, a dichotomy that is as deep as the soul.
There is fertile ground for teaching in the psychology of death. Some of the deepest lessons and opportunities for growth come from how we approach and process the end of life. The same is true for beginnings, as birth springs forth the joy of new creation. Each end of the cycle is inseparable from the other, a journey on which we must each choose our own path.
I am asked the question “how can you kill something that you claim to love”, and that dichotomy is part of the depth of emotion that is life. We use words like “shepard” and “steward” often without consciousness of the power that they connote, the set of relationships that are engendered.
To know our food in its essence is to understand the course of the journey. To be with it in life and to hold space for it in death is part of the commitment we make to the land, to the animals and crops that we raise, and to each other. This commitment is the glue that binds us in good times and in difficult ones, and it is also the mettle by which we are tested.
Holding reverence for the life processes that we shepard and steward yields strength, an alchemical transmutation of emotion into conviction and action. It is in facing this process with open mind and heart that we grow and learn, deepening the flow in this river of life. Recognizing the miracle makes us aware of the infinite, the intangible, that which is all encompassing.
It feels good to hold steady in the face of difficulty, and to hold reverence in the face of death. It is a process that we are still learning, and I suspect that this continued education will only end in our own passing. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
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Remember, you can’t spell slaughter without ‘laughter.’
After vegan for twenty plus years I started farming to be self sustainable. I used to slaughter farm animals. But that was then. Now, me birds give eggs for a time and then live out their lives as beloved friends. Merla and Merna me best little mates were 12 yrs old when they passed away in their sleep naturally. I stopped raising lambs and other animals too. But It took several more years to go vegan again. Occasionally I’ll buy fundraiser or cook up BBQ but it doesn’t taste as good as I remember it did. There’s so many plant based products now to choose from I don’t miss meats at all.
I’m getting there myself. The husband is a meat eater, but when I serve him something vegetarian and occasionally vegan he doesn’t mind (especially if I don’t tell him).
We get our eggs from a local gal, with happy chickens.
As a old school hunting family, some of the traditions, really, can still be there. The 10 day “hunting trips” to eastern Oregon have become more the “10 days of driving and walking miles through the woods and actually not shooting anything”, but we still get the campfires at night and see some beautiful country. The stars through the crown of conifers are the ultimate goal. That and the beer around the fire, for him and some others in the family, anyway.
I told him when they can make vegan bacon we’re going vegetarian. He rarely gets it unless I can find a humane source. I do have a beef source that is humane, but we don’t need the beef to survive.
Seafood, yeah that’ll be still be on the plate, but we’re a commercial fishing family.
That is a lot of thinking about it. Raise goats. There is no planned date to fret over, by the time you have endured enough damage it just goes with a hail of bullets and a bunch of swear words and you can’t wait to get the head off, guts out and in the freezer and back to your zen place after months of high blood pressure. Once I did 2 before breakfast that way I was so pissed. When you finally sit down for fried heart that evening you realize the yard actually looks pretty good and fireproof!
OMG, that was funny !
That goat comment is funny. Reminds me of the ruthless attitude otherwise kindhearted farmers have toward gophers.
More depressing news.
RIP Trusting Friend Porcine.
just curious, what’s your theory on being vegan possibly killing a person?
Lack of about 15 key nutrients specifically fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
Also b12.
I know all the arguments about how vegan /plant based diets can account for those deficiencies. It kinda sounds good at first.
But in reality no amount of flax, peanut butter , god awful saturated coconut oil and palm oil fake meat and fake cheese concoctions and the buckets of b12 and other random supplements you end up buying will ever satiate or properly nourish you. And it’s horrible for growing children!!
Ps: I was being dramatic suggesting veganism kills, but vegan “deterioration” is inevitable . Sad but true.
Yep, I’ve read over and over, if you’re going to go vegan at least supplement with a good organic desiccated beef liver supplement.
I realize that people eat meat and there’s a common way of obtaining it. I talked with my teacher, Lama Dawa, when he was coming through here. He said that there’s a sacred path to follow by trained people in a tradition that respects the life they’re taking and absolves them from Karmic debt, but unless you’re trained in that, to never intentionally take a life. It’s not my intention to judge you, but “staying calm” and “holding steady” are pretty far short of that mark. It’s hard to believe that you could actually feel love for a fellow sentient being and kill it so you could eat it.
Farmers do it all the time. It’s called, “life.”
That’s exactly what farming is.
Hunting on the other hand was what I did. I’d fill others tags and still fill mine.
It’s all left me now. I can finally watch a nice buck without wanting my rifle.
I was Vegetarian for a long while. It wasn’t good for me personally. Even though it’s actually proven that vegetarians statistically live longer healthier lives, and it is better for the planet.. it just wasn’t doing me any favors. Factory Meat farming is awful for sure. And this country eats way too much meat… for a healthy planet or a healthy earth. That’s why I think it’s great to see folks raise their own, or get meat from more eco conscious vendors.
Man the pontificating in the article and by commenters is relentless… Get over yourselves.. you think predators in the wild think about things like this when they eat? Humans are too self important.
Yes. I think wild animals think about what they eat. How else are they such prolific and efficient hunters? It’s humans who are the “Mindless Eaters”..
to the lamb/pig/cow the shepard/farmer is a murderer
anon traveler
Ha. Sooo are Wolves, bears, birds, and pigs.. “Murderers”? People might think they are “Vegetarian” most likely the plants you eat.. are not.. Are plants murders too? Is Darlingtonia californica a murderous Bromeliaceae for it’s healthy consumption of Diptera?
Nothing against Veggie life.. it just wasn’t healthy for me. Soy sucks!