When it comes to the planting and growing of stuff, I harbor a little bit of a spooky lifey anti-choice fundamentalist nut. (Not that I’d disclose anything about my political positions…)
But I spend so much time preparing and starting seeds for the weaker and spindlier seedlings to be chucked in the compost bin. Then I had what I thought a glorious idea.
I see all over the place these hanging tomato and pepper plants for sale, and agree with a lot of the logic of it: one should let vines be vines, rather than obsessively working to defy gravity. If they’re off the ground, they’re less susceptible to succumbing to frost and blight. This all makes sense. But I don’t like doing things the easy way, so I spent a week chugging soda, then after recovering from the resulting birth of twenty pounds of intestinal bile, I whipped up the mighty ghetto creations you see in the photo above.
The single Hungarian wax pepper you see here is this year’s only product of this experiment, which probably has something to do with the notion that I am, after all, populating them with the weakest, barely fit for survival seedlings. It might also have something to do with the fact that these get planted long after the rest of the garden goes down. And there’s the issue of water, and while we get plenty of water hanging out in the ground, these guys actually need care. But still, it was a mighty pepper, living the American dream, making something even though its opportunities are limited.
On the theme of limited opportunities, yesterday marked pig-slaughter day, a day of great Neanderthaloid pleasure, from my vantage. While I hadn’t expected anything resembling solemnity, a modicum of respect for the animals whose flesh they were taking, or the local vegetarian who took part in raising them, might’ve been appreciated. Later, after the day turned to party, because such days should always turn to parties, the butcher was asked to have a turn shooting skeet– because such parties are more fun with recreational bangery. “I already got to shoot today!” boasted the butcher with mouth swollen into the expression of pure joy. Now, were I a fighting type, there would’ve been fists, but it’s a good thing I’m not, because that does not add much fun to most parties. And so I’m seething at you, dearest internet, because while it’s rare and great to enjoy one’s work, the part of the work involving taking a rifle to the head of an animal really needs to be treated for what it is. Otherwise, the pigs might as well have been factory-farmed, and the dishonored rednecked knuckle-dragging discredits your entire operation. I’ll have no part in this next year, and expect My Native to be able to butcher his own meat (Hi, baby.).
Finally! A righteous and angrily rantish blog post. I knew I could do it!
I think what you’re seeing is the last vestigial “Lo, the mighty hunter returns with food for the village! Let there be much rejoicing!”, which is pretty hard to come by these days. (Stopping at the grocery store for a pound of hamburger on the way home from the office just isn’t the same.)
Some part of his backbrain was expecting singing and dancing and the lining up of nubile maidens trying to capture his genes for future generations…
Tore my canteloupe up by the roots. Raaally annoying your being such a much better person, (not the first time) but I’m fairly certain you can’t help it –
@Gayle
Given that the butcher in question is a woman (who appears under other pseudonyms in this blog, though less grotesquely stereotyped), I think you’re a bit off base. The condescending sexism of your final sentence really tears it, though. Lay off the pop anthropology, for about what the fuck you are talking you do not know.
Frankly, I’m disappointed by this whole blog post, because it trash talks a lot of people who, though they did not behave admirably on the day in question, are good people who have all helped us out plenty over the past couple of years. They had a bad day, but they deserve better than the treatment they got here.
This post has caused a bit of a rift between the Native and my own self. Harsh words have been exchanged. Épées crossed, blows landed.
Rest assured, Perusers of Internetalia, that My Native was not, in fact, among those Neanderthalistically characterized herein. He is right that a member of the party has helped us otherwise, but wrong in thinking this absolves the characterization of her as anything beyond how she composed herself on that day and under those circumstances. I stand by these words, despite the fact that they lead to much personal huff-and-scowl.
And without drawing further ugly details, Gayle might have had the sexes flipped, but was quite on point with sentiment.
Oh. Am I arguing with my Guy on my Blogh? Does this make me a Real Blogger??
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110910022531AAPLk4q
From my perspective, this is what happened:
We raised four pigs this year. One for my consumption, the others for friends and neighbors.
This was my first pig, so I asked for help with the butchering from a neighbor who raises her own. The butcher is a very generous, poor woman who grows her own food, home schools her kids and lives in a trailer that makes ours look like a fucking palace. She can also act like a townie tough, at times, particularly after drinking or when feeling insecure.
Another friend was there, with her kids, to pick up their pig and take it to a professional butcher. My butcher had agreed to slaughter and dress out the pig for her.
The other two pigs were being slaughtered by another party and also driven to a professional butcher.
The Butcher (as I guess she shall be known) arrived with all her own gear. I helped her set up, then the two of us went in the barn and culled out the pig I had chosen as ‘mine.’ The pig was quietly and calmly dispatched with a single shot to the head from a centerfire rifle. No squealing, no running around, no panic, no terror. It was done about as humanely as killing another living thing is ever going to get. The pig did not suffer.
We dragged the carcass out of the barn and hung it on the tripod with a gambrel. The butcher and I set to work, quietly, neatly and efficiently- her showing me the proper procedure for dressing the pig, which was larger than any animal I’d ever had to dress out before. I kept her knives sharp and watched and learned, assisting where helpful.
In the meantime, there were some young boys running around, spouting off a lot of young boy nonsense that young boys get from being raised by television sets- generally a lot of stupid, macho drivel of the sort one goes for when one is confronted with gross mortality and doesn’t have the equipment to deal with it, but also doesn’t want to look like a pussy. This is where Constance is lamenting the lack of reverence for the death of another creature. The boys were discussing what had moments before been a living thing with a clear degree of intelligence in its eye as ‘food product.’ It was shitty. It was a bummer. And they weren’t our kids, so it wasn’t my place to make a fucking scene over it.
But the part where it really got bad was when the second party arrived to slaughter the last two pigs.
The two guys arrived and there was immediate tension with the Butcher- sexist tension. They started observing her work, then offering ‘helpful advice,’ then stepping in and putting hands on the pig (by this time she was working on the second pig, and really wasn’t looking like any assistance was vaguely necessary).
So the two yokels jump in and proceed to quickly make a mess of the pig. They were filthy and got dirt all over the meat, cut through the skin, cut into the muscle, and finally the butcher lost it and loudly said “Excuse me!,” pushed them out of her way, and got back to work, but in a foul mood.
The two guys then set to work ‘their’ pigs. Word has it the pigs did not go down well. Instead of using a gambrel and tripod, these guys dragged the carcass into the ditch and squatted on top of it. I did my best to avoid looking at it, and we got out of there as soon as our second pig was finished, but it was generally a scene out of a Flemish morality painting.
So, anyway, we took my pig back to the Butcher’s house and… well… butchered it. She did the first half to show me the cuts and I did the second on my own, occasionally asking if I had it right. And I was really grateful for the help, thus my defense of the Butcher on that day.
When we were finished, we joined the party already in progress. To be clear, it was not a ‘killing pigs party’ as might be implied by the post above. Rather, it was the birthday party of Cooter Hollow’s own Small Person. The Butcher, still noticeably tense and offended from the interaction with the yokels, had a bit to drink and made her poorly considered remark.
And she was proud of her work. She should have been, particularly when compared to the other party. And given the sexes involved, this triumphal hunter spreading seed narrative wears a little thin and really pisses me off, not that I’m all that much of a feminist, or anything.