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| THOUGHTS FROM A DEVONSHIRE FARMHOUSE |
THOUGHTS FROM A DEVONSHIRE FARMHOUSE
Hello, and welcome to those lovely people who have recently joined my ‘I’ll remind you about this post’ e-mail service. I do hope those first-of-the-month emails are getting through to you? (If they are not I’m in trouble as you’ll not be reading this!)
First: thank you also for all the good wishes re my hip replacement op... I’m doing well, still need the crutches and I still can’t bend, but I’m getting there. A bit stiff and occasionally slightly uncomfortable – but nowhere near as bad as the pain I had with the arthritis – which has now totally gone!
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My theme this month is: NATURALLY NATURE?
Two things I recently heard on the radio (BBC Radio 4) made me think... we are somewhat squeamish when it comes to the reality of ‘Nature’ aren't we?
Living in a farming community (and now with a farmer as a son-in-law) the practicalities of nature have to be addressed – especially where livestock is involved. One thing to keep in mind is a frequent farming/veterinary saying: “Where there’s livestock, there’s deadstock”.
There’s nothing callous about this - it’s fact, for the simple reason that animals do not live as long as humans. Our beloved pets are family – but we have to accept that a dog, or cat, for instance, will be old at thirteen or fourteen-ish. Farm animals, hens, sheep, cattle, pigs, goats – deer – are farmed as dairy (milk, eggs etc), meat (or wool from the sheep). I am appalled that too many adults - and even more children, are oblivious as to where meat comes from. Beef, for instance, comes from cattle not from the supermarket! (Well it can do, but you know what I mean."
Unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, farm animals feed us. Although even then, if vegan, animals are needed for leather, their dung for fertilizer etc. I admit I don't have much patience with vegans, I feel they're idealists not living in the real world. Vegetarians, I respect, except, for both please stop trying to bully me into joining you. I don't bang on about 'you ought to eat meat' so don't you bang on about 'you shouldn't eat meat.' I enjoy my meat but I’d rather buy local meat in order to support the local community and, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall advocates, if animals are kept they must be kept properly and if used for food, they must be slaughtered humanely and no part left to go to waste.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Fearnley-Whittingstall |
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| River Cottage |
Climate change and the 'methane issue' is a fair point, but those who advocate the 'reduce dairy herds' idealism don't take into account that much of the UK countryside, for instance, is only suitable for dairy and sheep. Take Devon... the lush grassland of Devon is not suited to growing acres and acres of plant-based food for us humans to eat. It's grazing country and cows eating grass are, in fact, replenishing the environment by eating grass. (New growing grass adds the good gases to the atmosphere - just like growing trees). Having said that, no, I do not support these large farms where livestock is kept indoors 24/7, these huge barnaries should be banned. Cows eat grass. Chickens, pigs, should be free range.
Both the references on the radio were about the ‘nasty’ things of nature – but both were nature ... the reality. One was a comedy drama (Conversations From A Long Marriage starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam ) The character ‘Joanna’ becomes dreadfully upset while watching a David Attenborough programme on TV ... actually, more than upset, hysterical, because the scene is about hyenas bringing down their prey. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” she shrieks to her ‘husband’.
But that’s nature isn’t it? Lions, tigers, hyenas, snakes, sharks – whatever – catch and eat other species. It isn’t pleasant to watch, but that’s nature. To stay alive food is required - and not everything lives on grass.
The other example was Chris Packham talking on the radio (Today, Radio 4) about complaints concerning a scene from the BBC TV Springwatch programme. A mother bird eating her chicks – alive. Packham was explaining that this behaviour had previously been unknown about, and as Springwatch is a documentary they included it ... because that’s the truth about nature. But the complaints poured in.
Remember the first time it was realised that killer whales catch and eat seals? Or seals catch and eat penguins ... or penguins catch and eat fish. It’s the food chain. It’s nature.
What does annoy me are the TV ads showing distressed animals (well OK, children as well, but I’m more animal orientated rather than kids). Yes these ads are to beg for money – but I doubt much of the money actually goes to the charities. And why don’t they also make it clear that the said miserable donkey/dog/bear was immediately rescued and rehomed?
I also have no time for vegetarians who insist on their natural meat-eating pets eat veg only. Dogs and cats are meat eaters. If you don't like that thought, don't get a dog or cat - get a rabbit.
Have we all got too squeamish about these things? No, I don't want to actually go to an abattoir to see for myself, but I have been with animals as they've died. Held my beloved dog as she was put to sleep, sat with a dying horse's head in my lap until she could be put out of her pain. That's the responsibility of having pets. To be there, with them when the time has come to say goodbye.
Is it, though, a good thing that we do get emotional when we see upsetting things happening? If we didn't, what's the opposite? Indifference? Deliberate cruelty (to animals and people.) Many domestic violence abusers are as abusive towards the household pets as they are to the wife and children. (Usually wife, as most abusers are men - but there are cases of women being the abusive partner.)
As pet lovers a lot of ‘us’ have a lot to answer for. Abandoned or badly treated dogs and cats. The dog-loving owner who lets their dog off the lead and can do nothing to stop it chasing sheep in a field. Sheep that are pregnant ewes who will probably lose their lambs. Or dogs that get out and roam and chase – and kill - lambs or sheep. Horses that are starved, donkeys that do not have their feet trimmed. Rabbits kept for days and days in a tiny hutch... none of that is 'nature', it’s cruelty.
So compassion is something to be proud of, but accept nature for what it is. Real life.
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The sixth Jan Christopher Mystery.
A Mischief of Murder
is set in Devon, July 1973
and is based around the shenanigans that occur prior to the annual village flower and vegetable show.
(warning: snails are involved!)
published on July 16th
e-book available for pre-order
(paperback to follow)
To learn about the real 2025 village show
view our village blog here
and the seventh Jan Christopher is being planned:
A Matter of Murder...
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| a gypsy caravan |
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| swans on a river |
so some tantalising hints about the plot!
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Goodbye until next month
lege feliciter (read happily)
from a Devonshire Farmhouse
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THANK YOU!
Well said, I totally concur. You’ve covered a great deal of lucid points.
ReplyDeletethank you :-)
DeleteAll excellent points and I completely agree! Oh how I wish that our furry family members lived longer lives...but that is nature.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that you are recovering so well!! ♥
Mind you having to cope with the likes of Squidge (our monster monkey of an Exmoor pony) for a possible further 20 years *eye roll* (he's early 20s now, and I heard of an Exmoor who reached just under the age of 40...)
DeleteI completely agree!! I think we have gotten squeamish about where our food actually comes from. I remember my Dad working in the slaughterhouse (he was an HVAC technician), the smell on him was god awful but we still ate meat.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about pets - I do wish they could live longer - I’ve adopted many dogs in my lifetime and I make every one of them the same promise : “My face will be the last thing you see before you cross the rainbow bridge”.