Different Strokes

We've all been created so differently. There are physical difference, and differences in how we think and our emotional make up. Most times I can appreciate the beauty in those difference. Other times I am just dumb struck by them, and look at people and think, I just don't get you.

Recently a commenter at a different blog mentioned a family member who has apple trees in her yard. The family member refuses to use the apples from that tree, yet she goes to the store and buys the same variety of apples!?! I would love to have my own apple trees, and enjoy picking from the neighbors who are so kind to share with us. I just don't get letting apples in your own yard sit while you go and buy some from the store.

In an example closer to home, we have a neighbor who keeps a variety of animals similar to our farm here. They have a small breed of cows, ducks, chickens, goats, and a donkey. They have spent a lot of time, and money I am sure, to build fences for these animals. They have a small barn, and of course have to buy feed for these animals. Yet, every single one of these animals are pets. Yes, you read right, they are pets. Eggs are not gathered. Milking does not occur. Butchering is a dirty word.

These neighbors are really nice. I like them, but I don't understand them at all. They aren't vegans or vegetarians. They go to the store to buy meat and animal products. I know I tend to be a very practical person, and maybe that is why this behavior is so bewildering to me, but I just do not understand this mentality.

As a consequence of eggs not being gathered, these neighbors have roughly three dozen ducks they want to give away. We were hoping to take quite a few, some to replace the stock we lost to predators this summer, and some to fatten to butcher. It isn't going to happen. We will probably get a few for breeding and egg purposes, but our neighbor "just wouldn't feel right" giving them to anyone who will be butchering the ducks. *bewildered look* "I just don't get you."

Different strokes for different folks. People are free to grow whatever fruit or animals, not intended for consumption, they want. I know what kind of money goes into feed and fence and shelter around here. If you want to spend that kind of money on pets, I don't understand it, but c'est la vie.

I have to wonder though, how we have become so disconnected from our food that we would rather buy our food from the store than eat the food we raise ourselves. That nicely packaged T-bone in the grocers cooler also once belonged to a gentle cow with big brown eyes. Only you don't know what that cow was fed, what it was injected with, how it was treated, or anything else about it.

Yes, our animals are cute. Yes, I sometimes get a little attached. But in the end, this family needs to eat. I would much rather feed them with meat and produce that I've been in close contact with from the beginning, than to spend our hard earned money to buy the end result of someone else tending my food.

But that is just me.

I'm sure many are now looking at me and thinking, I just don't get you.