{"id":2676,"date":"2011-07-10T22:19:27","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T02:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2011-07-10T22:19:27","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T02:19:27","slug":"experiencing-the-circle-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/07\/10\/experiencing-the-circle-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Experiencing the circle of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn’t until I arrived in San Francisco that I started hearing the buzz-term “sustainable farming”. Wasn’t all farming sustainable? I spent a lot of my childhood on a dairy farm so killing wasn’t really what we did. We grew our own crops but those went straight to the cows and the cows died of old age. We’d sell calves to other farms and introduce bulls into the herd to get the heifers pregnant in order to start milking again. This process was repeated until the cow simply couldn’t produce milk any more and died. Farm life was fun. I moved to a beach town as a teenager and my father kept us buying organic veggies from the grocery store and we lived a mostly vegetarian life and only eating chicken or fish on the days that we did consume meat. We always gave thanks for the deaths that occurred for us to be sustained. Most of my protein intake that was meant to assist in the repair (and growth) of my muscles which were always being broken down with 2 a day body building sessions came from protein drinks that mostly arrived from whey and soy isolates. It was a very healthy childhood but I wasn’t aware of the reality of super market stock and exactly what was happening with the food industry in America.<\/p>\n

While in France I exclaimed, “Wow, those cows are just eating grass?” My co-worker replied, “Yeah, what do your cows in the US eat?” I didn’t know the answer but I was sure that our beef cows weren’t eating much grass.<\/p>\n

I’ve experienced a radical transformation of late and it’s not a fad or an experiment. This stems from an inspiration to live a better life. I began this change last year when a doctor shared with me the harsh reality that I was on the verge of becoming a type II diabetic and my time shifted from an abundance of open bar Internet parties in San Francisco to vitamins, supplements, greens and exercise. I stopped gaming and cut back on blogging. I shifted my approach from lattes to black coffee and making a habit out of carrying my water bottle everywhere. I became a healthier human but, after my vacations in Las Vegas, Florida and Los Angeles, I’d come back to San Francisco and always felt like I need a break from San Francisco and its people and cars and noise and life. I need a break from THIS and that was the time that I got a phone call from TomTom here in New Hampshire. I could have remained in SF and worked from a satellite office but I moved to New Hampshire, lived on the outskirts of town in a cabin and began challenging myself in the most extreme ways.<\/p>\n

\"Busy<\/a><\/p>\n

I tried to find my coldest temperature before absolutely putting on a jacket and pants. I tried a hand at shoveling snow, driving on ice, running a wood stove and figuring out how to survive when my outside thermometer told me the temperature was 30 below 0 for a solid week. It was a complete shock from my time in Florida and San Francisco. I survived the winter and miss it now that it’s gone. The winter was amazing in so many ways but I was just getting started. I bought 13 chickens, a chicken coop and made a garden in my back yard. I’ve begun planning a grand life challenge which is to survive in New Hampshire for a full winter without the use of a refrigerator or oven. To keep my things cool out in the snow, to cure my own meat in the smoker and to only cook over a fire. Insanity? Hardly. I may never live in the country again. I may find myself in a large city next year and want to ensure that I experience this time in New Hampshire to its fullest potential.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, I took another step in my existence in the country. It was an action that left me nauseous all day. It was something that I’ll be doing again soon because I must do it and have to do it to live the life I want to live. I took the life of a chicken today. Specifically, it was my rooster. He was 15 months old and beginning to arrive at his destiny which was to protect a flock of hens, to call them to him with his crows and to fertilize their eggs. He was doing as he should but this posed an issue for me. It was not a killing that I took lightly. The past 4 weeks have been filled with territorial battles as he will attack anyone who enters “his yard” and he nearly murdered one of the hens who was at the bottom of the pecking order and, every other egg has been fertilized by him which is simply not acceptable. Finally, the majority of the food I’m buying is going to him and the return from this rooster, which is to protect the hens, is not needed as I haven’t had any attacks in the last 3 months from predators which he had to ward off.<\/p>\n

The rooster, in the most simplest terms, has been useless. Today, I caught him, killed him, de-feathered him, gutted him and prepared his body for freezing. In a few days, I’ll eat him.<\/p>\n

I haven’t shed a tear. This fate will be the same fate to all 13 of my chickens when the time comes. It’s an end that is inevitable when you are raising chickens. The reality is, The United States kills 30 billion chickens each year for the sole purpose of eating them. That was no typo and commercial chickens live with a million other chickens in a small space where each hen has only two square feet of space. They’re thrown into trucks thousands at a time and taken to factories where 2,000 of them are killed and torn apart by under paid workers every single hour. There are cases where men and women go insane working the assembly lines where our meat is prepared. This fact has not made me vegetarian. I understand the relationship we have with our prey. I do live mostly vegetarian compared to others but understand the place that meat has in my life. The result has been that I only buy meat from markets where I meat the farmer who killed and butchered the animal and I will do my own killing and eating.<\/p>\n

\"Filing<\/a><\/p>\n

Today was a rough day.<\/p>\n

My girlfriend looked on as I plucked the rooster and cut him into pieces for freezing. I nearly vomited as my gloved hand entered him to remove intestines and organs. I felt sick when I broke off his legs and wings. A rooster who I fed daily for months is now resting in my freezer. Beyond the gory details, there is a truth to this that none of us can avoid and that’s the truth that he lived and died in a far more humane way than he would if he had been born into a commercial operation. There are the vegetarian arguments that killing is bad and I respect all lifestyles but, in my choices to eat meat, I have also made the responsible choice to have a connection with the meat that I consume. I believe that is the closest I can get without swearing off meat altogether.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no doubt that my meal of the rooster will be that of supreme thankfulness and appreciation for the life he lived and that subsequent life he gave in order to nourish me and my friends. It’s not a life that I take for granted. It’s a life I appreciate.<\/p>\n

\"They<\/a><\/p>\n

I have decided though that the next few days will be meat free. I can’t think about meat right now and will eventually come around to it but I learned a valuable lesson today in the thankfulness and appreciation I have for the muscle tissue I ingest and where it came from and how it was murdered. Meat is murder but, when you are the one who nourished and took that life, the way you sustain yourself from it is on a different level than it was before.<\/p>\n

\"'Birds'<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m thankful today and give many thanks for the life that is given for me to survive on this Earth. I am, in no way better or worse than these creatures. We are equals and am thankful for the sacrifice my rooster gave to sustain me and my life here.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn’t until I arrived in San Francisco that I started hearing the buzz-term “sustainable farming”. Wasn’t all…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-2676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-life","tag-farming","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-Ha","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":310,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/05\/19\/my-thoughts-on-food-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 My Thoughts on “Food, Inc.”","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Below, is a trailer on a new independent film called, \"Food, Inc.\" and I was lucky enough to be invited to a screening of this movie last night. The movie was based on the commercialization of our food and focused on the American food supply chain without much mention of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2442,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/06\/07\/from-a-bag-of-corn-to-an-omelet-on-my-plate\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 From a bag of corn to an omelet on my plate","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"June 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"On the 5th day owning a flock of hens, they ladies have become familiar with me approaching their pen. The usually silent chickens run to the fence and start clucking. Each chicken has a different style cluck and still the 5 white and 6 black chickens remain segregated among their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culinary"","block_context":{"text":"Culinary","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/culinary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Chicken Stew","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5145\/5747237227_448996221d_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4045,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/04\/03\/moving-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":2},"title":"Moving….again","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Before everyone goes crazy about me moving back to California, I\u2019m staying in New Hampshire. I realize the last few posts about the west coast would leave some of you to think I\u2019m going back to California or maybe even home to Florida. My sister is graduating from high school\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lake Mascoma","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3790\/13521711444_2b7522a0fa_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3484,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/01\/17\/what-everyday-habit-do-you-wish-you-had-developed-earlier-in-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 “What everyday habit do you wish you had developed earlier in life?”","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"via Quora: Exercising every day. Nothing beats this. If you really want to make a change to your energy levels on a daily basis, your overall mood, your self confidence, your health and your happiness, then this is one thing that will get you there.\u00a0 Back in the day, life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Linked"","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2434,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/05\/31\/mark-zuckerbergs-new-challenge-eating-only-what-he-kills\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 “Mark Zuckerberg’s new challenge: Eating only what he kills”","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"May 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Zuckerberg via Fortune: To start, let me give you some background on what I'm doing. Every year in recent memory, I've taken on a personal challenge -- something to learn about the world, expand my interests and teach myself greater discipline. 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