Slaughter Part II

Disclaimer: I really, really want to insert humor wherever I can into this post to lighten the mood. I truly do. The problem is, I can't find a single place where it is appropriate. I know everyone always warns that if you want people to read, you must stay neutral and PC in all things, but in this situation, that would be totally pathetic. I can't do it. Even though what I heard that evening was profound enough to still impact me three months later (which is really saying something considering my average impact timespan is roughly 3 days), I'm not going to exaggerate or dramatize it. I don't think I have to. Hang on real fast; I need to pour another glass of wine to continue.

So my blessed neighbor doesn't do the slaughtering at her ranch, which every neighbor within a five mile radius is thankful for (turns out, so are the cows). I have heard told my whole life the wonderful fairytale that the animals we eat are too stupid to know what's happening to them. Well, whoever made that one up has clearly never lived near my neighbor.  In the ten months we've been here so far, I am certain that this has happened before, but for whatever reason I've never noticed. Probably too busy grilling, frying, baking and sautéing beef.  Unfortunately for my belief in happy endings, this last time I heard it; everybody heard it.

We are used to hearing the lowing of her cows because they do it often. Maybe they're hungry or thirsty or randy or anxious because they sense coyotes about. This is how it usually is with the cows. But these were not the sounds of this night. On this night, there were layers.  There were so many different voices that it was like a robe-wearing cow choir.  I take it back; that was a horrible simile. They sounded nothing like a choir. In the attempt not to sound dramatic, I won't say what they really sounded like, but it wasn't a choir (cows, forgive me for even writing that).

At dinner I made a brief comment about the unusual amount of noise coming from the cows, but didn't think much of it until I realized that we were on to dessert and they still hadn't stopped. They were getting louder. The cries were growing, like more cows were joining in. This had never happened before (or at least we were too busy grilling to notice) and soon our curiosity was piqued. However, one thing we learned pretty quickly from our neighbors is that most people move away from the city to be left alone. The few times we've driven up their driveways - all at least 1/4 mile long - we've been met with a few shotguns and a lot of large dogs. I personally learned this by attempting to deliver we-are-new-to-the-neighborhood pies to everyone on our street at Christmas time (which, looking back, shouldn't I have been the one accepting pies?). Clearly we were not about to saunter up her drive and get all up in her business. And then there's the other tacit agreement of country folk: we all buy a lot of land so we can do what we want on that land. We don't bother you, so don't bother us. The problem is, I ain't no country gal yet.