It took years before I could even wrap my mind around eating an animal that I knew and loved. Would I really be able to eat it? Would it taste funny? How would the kids handle it? Would they be upset, devastated for life? Our youngest daugter, Mette, has a deep passion for animals..kissing each chick as she removes them from the delivery box and lovingly showing them where to get food and water. Her first experience with death was a small kitten she found dead in the yard. I held her sobbing body for almost 3 hours before she finally drifted off to sleep. I was certain her little heart was too tender for meat animals. The guilt of eating factory farmed animals began to wear on me. Not certain of which repulsed me more, the treatment of the animals or the filth they are raised in, I told myself to get over it and if I was ever going to find success in this homesteading dream I would have to raise meat or become a vegetarian. I ordered the first broiler chicks. I explained to the children that these chickens were meat chickens and if they didn't want to help care for them, I would not require it. I was not quite sure that Mette understood my lecture as I watched her welcome each chick with a kiss as she had all of the others. When the day arrived for the chickens to be butchered, Mette insisted that she be allowed to go with them to the processing plant. Forcing my own fears on her, I refused. The only tears shed were those of disappointment that she was not allowed to go. Not once did she say she didn't want them to die or that she felt sorry for them in any way. She helped bag them up and place them in the freezer when they came back. Four years later it is not odd for her to come in the house holding one upside down by it's feet...."Look Mama! We got a dead one!" Kids are stronger than we give them credit for.
