Solace Farm

Well, maybe the goats, donkeys, and dogs can get clean water from the emus’ pool.

I have struggled with this and come around fairly late in life, but “better late than never”, right?

You could never kill an animal you raised… Is the most ironic statement.

But did you know, there is a strange kind of disconnect in judging the hands that raise their own food while trusting a drive-thru window to feed your children something you never saw live,
never saw raised, never saw processed,
never asked questions about.

You could never butcher a chicken, but you will hand your child nuggets shaped by machines, seasoned for addiction,
wrapped in paper, and call it normal.

You could never eat from your own pasture, but you will eat from a box,
a bag, a fryer, a factory line, and never wonder what had to happen before it reached your plate.

You could never stomach the blood,
but you trust the label.

You could never face the life, but you consume the death.

You could never raise it, love it, feed it,
thank God for it, and use it with reverence.

But every morning, you rub chemicals beneath your arms, spray fragrance over your skin, swallow ingredients you can not pronounce, and call the farmer cruel.

Maybe the cruelty is not in knowing where your food comes from.

Maybe the cruelty is in forgetting.
For the farmer remembers.

The farmer sees the life.
The farmer carries the weight.
The farmer gives thanks.
The farmer wastes little.

And while the world grows farther from the soil, the barn, the blood, and the truth…

Some of us still believe food should come with gratitude, not ignorance.

Thank God for the Farmer and all the Homesteaders pulling up chairs at this Grand Table of animal husbandry. ❤️ 🤠
Hats off to the men and women embracing where their food truly comes from. 👏

📸 Sitka Blacktail Deer enjoying the lush grass across the water.

I moved Goldie, her daughter Georgia, and Myrlee’s bucklings, Todd and Benny, to the South Pen to join Charlee and her girls, where they have more space and playthings (aka, “goat enrichment”). The kids are having a blast. This morning when I woke up, they were all jumping around on the big boulder. They have also discovered the cool pirate ship.