220 animal, vegetable, miracle
get their emotional affairs in order, if that helps. But they have limited
emotional affairs, and no idea what’s coming.
We had a lot more of both. Our plan for this gorgeous day was the re-
moval of some of our animals from the world of the living into the realm
of food. At five months of age our roosters had put on a good harvest
weight, and had lately opened rounds of cockfighting, venting their rising
hormonal angst against any moving target, including us. When a rooster
flies up at you with his spurs, he leaves marks. Lily now had to arm herself
with a length of pipe in order to gather the eggs. Our barnyard wasn’t big
enough for this much machismo. We would certainly take no pleasure in
the chore, but it was high time for the testosterone- reduction program.
We sighed at the lovely weather and pulled out our old, bloody sneakers
for harvest day.
/There was probably a time when I thought it euphemistic to speak of
“harvesting” animals. Now I don’t. We calculate “months to harvest” when
planning for the right time to start poultry. We invite friends to “harvest
parties,” whether we’ll be gleaning vegetable or animal. A harvest implies
planning, respect, and effort. With animals, both the planning and physi-
cal effort are often greater, and respect for the enterprise is substantially
more complex. It’s a lot less fun than spending an autumn day picking
apples off trees, but it’s a similar operation on principle and the same
word.
Killing is a culturally loaded term, for most of us inextricably tied up
with some version of a command that begins, “Thou shalt not.” Every
faith has it. And for all but perhaps the Jainists of India, that command is
absolutely conditional. We know it does not refer to mosquitoes. Who
among us has never killed living creatures on purpose? When a child is
sick with an infection we rush for the medicine spoon, committing an
eager and purposeful streptococcus massacre. We sprinkle boric acid or
grab a spray can to rid our kitchens of cockroaches. What we mean by
“killing” is to take a life cruelly, as in murder—or else more accidentally,
as in “Oops, looks like I killed my African violet.” Though the results are