MARSHA:GROWING UP ON THE FARM
I am a big city girl married to a farm boy. When we were dating he
took me to meet his friends. It just so happened they worked at a
slaughter house. The day we went to visit they were slaughtering pigs.
I didn’t realize that they killed the pig and skinned it with the head
still on. It took me 3 months before I could eat pork again. I had a
small ham steak in the freezer. Every time I took it out I saw that
naked little piggy face and thought not today!!!
The only other thing that bothered me was they had pigs in a pen in
the same room. I thought that was kind of mean. Susan in Ohio
September 23rd, 2004 at 1:33 pm
Hopefully we are not grossing people out.
We can take this off list if it
would be better. Andrew? Are people up to listening to the reality of farm
life or is this too far off diabetes? I bow to your decision on that after this
post.
Farms are all about death when it comes right down to it. You create life in
order to feed it to something or someone else. The combines that harvest the
wheat also chop down all the critters in the field - and any farm kids who get
in the way. Then there are the poisons that kill the animals that want the same
food. I figure I have been cropdusted so often by being in the wrong place at
the wrong time that I could be named Toxic Tizzy. It isn’t just the bugs that
get it, we kill all sorts of things in order to keep vegetative matter for
ourselves. We are in less competition with predators (wolves) than we are with
birds, rodents (including cute little bunnies) and critters such as the deer who
come and eat up all your produce.
We killed our own animals for meat, we raised our own vegetables for food, did
the canning and freezing and whatnot. It bothered me less to chop a head off a
chicken than it did to see what happened when an animal was caught in a
harvesting machine - now THAT is ugly.
My cousins were city kids. I remember when my cousin nearest in age found out
milk came from cows and not from factories. Insofar as I am aware she never
drank milk again. Of course, this is the same cousin who would not kiss because
she thought babies came from kissing - other actions were perfectly okay, though
- until I explained that kissing was NOT the issue.
Now, back to diabetes and eating naturally - no one goes on a protein binge.
None of our comfort foods include steak, pot roast or chicken legs. We binge on
carbs and carbs are what is making the nation as a whole very obese, espeically
carbs in combination with fat - as in candy bars, donuts, cakes, pies, etc.
Okay, off my soapbox in the pasture - duck! here comes a cropduster.
Marsha
September 27th, 2004 at 1:22 am
so marsha, i grew up on the farm too. does that mean that we are women out
standing in our fields?
Farms are all about death when it comes right down to it. You create life in
order to feed it to something or someone else. The combines that harvest the
wheat also chop down all the critters in the field - and any farm kids who get
in the way. Then there are the poisons that kill the animals that want the same
food. I figure I have been cropdusted so often by being in the wrong place at
the wrong time that I could be named Toxic Tizzy. It isn’t just the bugs that
get it, we kill all sorts of things in order to keep vegetative matter for
ourselves. We are in less competition with predators (wolves) than we are with
birds, rodents (including cute little bunnies) and critters such as the deer who
come and eat up all your produce.
We killed our own animals for meat, we raised our own vegetables for food, did
the canning and freezing and whatnot. It bothered me less to chop a head off a
chicken than it did to see what happened when an animal was caught in a
harvesting machine - now THAT is ugly.
My cousins were city kids. I remember when my cousin nearest in age found out
milk came from cows and not from factories. Insofar as I am aware she never
drank milk again. Of course, this is the same cousin who would not kiss because
she thought babies came from kissing - other actions were perfectly okay, though
- until I explained that kissing was NOT the issue.
Now, back to diabetes and eating naturally - no one goes on a protein binge.
None of our comfort foods include steak, pot roast or chicken legs. We binge on
carbs and carbs are what is making the nation as a whole very obese, espeically
carbs in combination with fat - as in candy bars, donuts, cakes, pies, etc.
Okay, off my soapbox in the pasture - duck! here comes a cropduster.
Marsha
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Anything posted in this group is the opinion of the person who posted it.
SPONSORED LINKS
Pancreas Ada Insulin Diabetic Support groups Position
Visit your group "Diabetes_And_Byetta" on the web.
———————————
September 27th, 2004 at 12:08 pm
Annie,
Muffled laughter. Indeed, I have been out standing in my field for ages…and
in the ditches, doing water setting, and in the barns, shoveling s**t, and in
the hen house shoveling "sunshine" and gathering eggs, and … well, we both get
the picture.
I swear to Buddha that it is growing up with such distance from our origins that
make folks so queezy about the life/death cycle. I learned early never to make
a pet of my potential dinner as it was pretty tough to eat a pet pig - which
sent me on a pork strike for a half a year, until Buddy was out of the freezer.
So, d’ja do crops, critters, dairy or a little of all?
Marsha–> crops & critters
Cheers!
Marsha
September 28th, 2004 at 11:46 am
we just had "the family farm". we raised a few animals , cows, pigs, goats,
horses, chickens, ducks, geese turkeys… mostly pets. we had a 33 acre farm. my
grandparents had about 50 acres. they lived a mile down the road. we reaised a
little corn(mostly to feed the animals) a garden at each place. bailed the hay..
raised about an acre of tobacco. nothing commercial, all for personal use
rule of thumb…if you are gonna eat it, DON"T name it… things with names
cannot be eaten.
i have gathered my share of eggs, shoveled my share of s**t and milked my
share of cows… but wouldn’t have changed any of it for the world
Muffled laughter. Indeed, I have been out standing in my field for ages…and
in the ditches, doing water setting, and in the barns, shoveling s**t, and in
the hen house shoveling "sunshine" and gathering eggs, and … well, we both get
the picture.
I swear to Buddha that it is growing up with such distance from our origins that
make folks so queezy about the life/death cycle. I learned early never to make
a pet of my potential dinner as it was pretty tough to eat a pet pig - which
sent me on a pork strike for a half a year, until Buddy was out of the freezer.
So, d’ja do crops, critters, dairy or a little of all?
Marsha–> crops & critters
Cheers!
Marsha
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Anything posted in this group is the opinion of the person who posted it.
SPONSORED LINKS
Pancreas Ada Insulin Diabetic Support groups Position
Visit your group "Diabetes_And_Byetta" on the web.
———————————
October 4th, 2004 at 3:28 am
This list is set to where both REPLY and REPLY all go to the entire list. It is
difficult to take something offlist when the "Reply TO" option doesn’t go to the
original sender of the post. Just a thought….