Not only was I expecting country life to cure me of my hesitance to kill insects, I was also hoping it would cure me of that pansy feeling that animals have a right to live and not be slaughtered by arrogant humans who believe they can do whatever they want to anything that can't fight back or speak up for itself. I'm honestly not trying to get anyone's goat here; I'm simply pointing out a rather ignorant, superficial hope I had. And worse, that hope stemmed from the desire to eat what I want, when I want, despite who I might be eating.
Moving next door to an organic, free range cattle rancher seemed like the perfect way to learn to forget my woos. I've done everything I can to convince myself of the Meat Manifest Destiny doctrine. I've tried to "connect" with her cattle, but decided that they are too dumb to be capable of connecting because the smallest movement I made caused them to take off running in terror (unlike my majestic goats who play and run with me; hence, no one would consider eating. Except for, of course, the other half the world). I've spoken numerous times to the rancher who actually makes her living by raising cattle for slaughter. I've listened closely to what she has to say, and I really do admire her philosophy. It costs her more and earns her less to raise these animals in a humane way and I deeply respect her for that. It isn't easy to do what is right when doing what is wrong is so easy and pays 10 times more. For a while there, I thought it had worked. I bought her meat and grilled it with relative ease. And I'm not gonna lie - it was by far the best meat I've ever had.
But then the cattle car came.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
I'm Not Adding a Photo Because that Would be Gross
It's now spring in the country and I'm not gonna lie, it's lost a bit of it's romance (wow - three "it's" in one small sentence). Not that living in the country on the whole has lost anything, but more specifically, living in a barn that we failed to properly seal has lost part of its zeal. Being a city gal my entire life had magically made me believe that there were a lot less insects on this planet than there actually are. And I must say that I am now burning with righteous indignation. There are not only more insects in existence than I thought, but there are more of them living in my HOME than I believed to be in the whole of Orange County. And I worked at OCSHA in Santa Ana where there were cockroaches the size of coke cans roaming the halls.
At any given moment I can look around my concrete floor and find a heterogeneous gathering of bugs that would rival the UN: spiders vying for the top corners of the ceiling, moths vying for the lamp light, beetles vying for the bath rug, pincher bugs vying for the kitchen sponge, mosquito eaters vying for what they think are mosquitos but aren't so they're really helping nothing (these will make their debut in about a month just about when the m. eaters are gone), gnats vying for my compost scraps, and flies who don't know what they're vying for. And if you don't believe that it really is this bad, consider this: yesterday I was paying for flowers at Trader Joe's and a pincher bug ran across the scanner. The man quickly said, "Oh, must have come with the flowers" but I had a sinking feeling that it actually came with me. And then today at work I was thumbing through my copy of "The Skinny Bitch Vegan Cookbook" when another pincher bug ran across the counter. Um, we serve wine. There are no flowers or dirt or foodstuffs or wet sponges within 100 feet of the tasting room. It hitched a ride on the skinny bitch express right out of my kitchen.
Introduce brief interlude. I just this second killed FOUR beetles and TWO spiders. That was just in the bathroom. God knows how many others are in the rest of the 2000 square feet of this barn. I'm having to listen to Vanilla Ice right now just to keep my spirits up.
Here's the thing. I hate killing things. Anything. I thought that moving to the country would cure me of this liberal weakness but it hasn't. All it's done is magnify the fact that it's either me or them. You're either with us or against us. Oh, George, how I've stooped to your level! But what can I do? No matter where I look or when I look, I promise you I will find an intruder, though if the insect world of Templeton had lawyers, no doubt they would argue that a structure without sealed borders can legally have no intruders. And I would have no choice but to acquiesce. So herein lies my dilemma. The bug lawyers are right: we have not done a sufficient job of fortifying our living space against these squatters, but none-the-less, I just can't seem to warm to the communal living situation that has developed. And perhaps the shittiest thing about them (besides their unfortunately gross appearance) is that you can't reason with them. I've tried and tried: "Guys, listen. You're gonna die if you don't high-tail it out of this bathroom right now. I don't wanna do it, but I can't very well get into the bathtub with all of you hanging around on the bathmat." And then we just sit there staring at each other. And they don't budge an inch. They really do force my hand. I mean, what would you do? Give them a scotch and tell them to wait in the library?
So there you have it. My insect extravaganza is so consuming that I can't even begin to speak of the other grandiose wonders I'm discovering in this country life, mostly because I'm facing another beetle posse as I write, and trying to decide if this time I will use the spray, the shoe or the toilet.
At any given moment I can look around my concrete floor and find a heterogeneous gathering of bugs that would rival the UN: spiders vying for the top corners of the ceiling, moths vying for the lamp light, beetles vying for the bath rug, pincher bugs vying for the kitchen sponge, mosquito eaters vying for what they think are mosquitos but aren't so they're really helping nothing (these will make their debut in about a month just about when the m. eaters are gone), gnats vying for my compost scraps, and flies who don't know what they're vying for. And if you don't believe that it really is this bad, consider this: yesterday I was paying for flowers at Trader Joe's and a pincher bug ran across the scanner. The man quickly said, "Oh, must have come with the flowers" but I had a sinking feeling that it actually came with me. And then today at work I was thumbing through my copy of "The Skinny Bitch Vegan Cookbook" when another pincher bug ran across the counter. Um, we serve wine. There are no flowers or dirt or foodstuffs or wet sponges within 100 feet of the tasting room. It hitched a ride on the skinny bitch express right out of my kitchen.
Introduce brief interlude. I just this second killed FOUR beetles and TWO spiders. That was just in the bathroom. God knows how many others are in the rest of the 2000 square feet of this barn. I'm having to listen to Vanilla Ice right now just to keep my spirits up.
Here's the thing. I hate killing things. Anything. I thought that moving to the country would cure me of this liberal weakness but it hasn't. All it's done is magnify the fact that it's either me or them. You're either with us or against us. Oh, George, how I've stooped to your level! But what can I do? No matter where I look or when I look, I promise you I will find an intruder, though if the insect world of Templeton had lawyers, no doubt they would argue that a structure without sealed borders can legally have no intruders. And I would have no choice but to acquiesce. So herein lies my dilemma. The bug lawyers are right: we have not done a sufficient job of fortifying our living space against these squatters, but none-the-less, I just can't seem to warm to the communal living situation that has developed. And perhaps the shittiest thing about them (besides their unfortunately gross appearance) is that you can't reason with them. I've tried and tried: "Guys, listen. You're gonna die if you don't high-tail it out of this bathroom right now. I don't wanna do it, but I can't very well get into the bathtub with all of you hanging around on the bathmat." And then we just sit there staring at each other. And they don't budge an inch. They really do force my hand. I mean, what would you do? Give them a scotch and tell them to wait in the library?
So there you have it. My insect extravaganza is so consuming that I can't even begin to speak of the other grandiose wonders I'm discovering in this country life, mostly because I'm facing another beetle posse as I write, and trying to decide if this time I will use the spray, the shoe or the toilet.
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