Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Piggy Time

   We got a pig!
     Two years ago I had my first experience with raising pigs. It was horrible; I knew nothing about pigs-- where to keep them, how smart they are, how ornery they are, how badly they sunburn, how pointless it is to bathe them...
     But now all I can seem to remember is how cute my pig was.

    When some friends of ours had a litter of piglets (a litter of piglets? Is that how you say it?), my dad decided we would buy one.
        For dinner.
      Cue 'Charolette's Web.'
     
      People always assume that I eat a lot of beef because I grow so much of it in my backyard. It may be odd to hear, but my family doesn't often eat our own animals. Our cattle, while beef cattle, usually are sold at a livestock market before they are 'harvest weight,' and from there they either go to: 1) a ranch to be breeder heifers/bulls, or 2) to a feedlot where they are fully grown out and then distributed to grocery stores, restaurants, etc. So unless one of our cows ends up at Publix, we're not going to eat it.
      Now it seems weird that I would eat an animal that I raised. I have been brought up to accept the Circle of Life that is the beef business, knowing that the animals we grow will become food. But MY food? Crazy.
      This pig will be a new chapter in my journey as a farm girl in progress.

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