"When I'm Feeling Bulletproof..."
Aug. 21st, 2011 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psalm_onethirtyoneOnce upon a time I told ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nowgoesquickly that one of the reasons I don't usually find horror films scary is that things happen on the farm that are sufficiently horrible as to eclipse monster sharks and squishy aliens.
So to-day we went down to feed the pigs and chickens and turkeys. They were all busy being adorable -- we have seven, count 'em, seven little jakes and they are super friendly -- and the chickens, which are adolescents and so fairly cute still and very fluffy, were scooting around making funny noises, and the pigs were playing in their water. Mama and Maria were scritching Grace behind the ears, and she fell over, which she always does when you scritch her.
We were remarking on the delicacy of their faces, and how pretty and wide their ears are, and their big eyes and long eyelashes and long red hair. I was actually starting to feel kind of bad about the fact that we'll slaughter them in November.
And then Mama said, "Oh, my God."
Maria and I looked.
"Oh fuck," I said, before I could stop myself. I glanced over at Mama to see if I was going to get a Look for swearing, but she was still staring in horror.
"But where's the other--?" said Maria.
We scanned the pig enclosure quickly. There it was, among the tomatoes we'd thrown in for the pigs to eat.
"Oh fuck," I squeaked.
"Oh, God," Mama said, poking in the mud and straw with a stick. There was a reddish clump of something that used to be golden.
Just then Darius, the boar, started to root. There was a cracking of bones as he grabbed the disembodied leg -- pallid and limp, drained of blood -- nearest to us and started to chew it up and devour it.
The buff Orphington cockerel is no more.
He climbed into the pig pen to steal some of their grain and they ate him.
Suddenly I am a lot more comfortable with their approaching execution. They do not look quite as cute as they used to.
Also, yesterday I had to empty another turkey nest full of dead eggs. >_> She had ten, and every single one had a stillborn poult inside. She is still sitting on the empty nest. I also found a hen brooding a clutch up in the hill pasture by the horse trailer, but hers appear to be reasonably healthy eggs and also she bit me very hard when I was checking them, so my plan is to leave her alone. A third hen hatched a clutch of six in the dry streambed beside the barn while we were on vacation, so perhaps this one can be competent.
Also also, the adolescent guineas learned to fly to-day! :D When I last checked, they were all up on the outhouse roof, while the adolescent poults stood around the bottom going "D: but we wanna go up there toooooo".
Maggie ate a groundhog. She dashed into the buffer by the Mahantango, grabbed it by the neck, and shook it till it was dead. It kept whining and screaming.
Horror films. Pffffft.
nowgoesquickly that one of the reasons I don't usually find horror films scary is that things happen on the farm that are sufficiently horrible as to eclipse monster sharks and squishy aliens.So to-day we went down to feed the pigs and chickens and turkeys. They were all busy being adorable -- we have seven, count 'em, seven little jakes and they are super friendly -- and the chickens, which are adolescents and so fairly cute still and very fluffy, were scooting around making funny noises, and the pigs were playing in their water. Mama and Maria were scritching Grace behind the ears, and she fell over, which she always does when you scritch her.
We were remarking on the delicacy of their faces, and how pretty and wide their ears are, and their big eyes and long eyelashes and long red hair. I was actually starting to feel kind of bad about the fact that we'll slaughter them in November.
And then Mama said, "Oh, my God."
Maria and I looked.
"Oh fuck," I said, before I could stop myself. I glanced over at Mama to see if I was going to get a Look for swearing, but she was still staring in horror.
"But where's the other--?" said Maria.
We scanned the pig enclosure quickly. There it was, among the tomatoes we'd thrown in for the pigs to eat.
"Oh fuck," I squeaked.
"Oh, God," Mama said, poking in the mud and straw with a stick. There was a reddish clump of something that used to be golden.
Just then Darius, the boar, started to root. There was a cracking of bones as he grabbed the disembodied leg -- pallid and limp, drained of blood -- nearest to us and started to chew it up and devour it.
The buff Orphington cockerel is no more.
He climbed into the pig pen to steal some of their grain and they ate him.
Suddenly I am a lot more comfortable with their approaching execution. They do not look quite as cute as they used to.
Also, yesterday I had to empty another turkey nest full of dead eggs. >_> She had ten, and every single one had a stillborn poult inside. She is still sitting on the empty nest. I also found a hen brooding a clutch up in the hill pasture by the horse trailer, but hers appear to be reasonably healthy eggs and also she bit me very hard when I was checking them, so my plan is to leave her alone. A third hen hatched a clutch of six in the dry streambed beside the barn while we were on vacation, so perhaps this one can be competent.
Also also, the adolescent guineas learned to fly to-day! :D When I last checked, they were all up on the outhouse roof, while the adolescent poults stood around the bottom going "D: but we wanna go up there toooooo".
Maggie ate a groundhog. She dashed into the buffer by the Mahantango, grabbed it by the neck, and shook it till it was dead. It kept whining and screaming.
Horror films. Pffffft.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 02:57 am (UTC)IT'S LIKE AN ENDLESS NIGHTMARE CIRCUS OF UNSPEAKABLE HORROR.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 03:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 07:27 am (UTC)I misunderstood this as "guinea pigs" and was briefly bewildered.
Someone once put on YouTube a video of a cow inadvertently ingesting a chick along with its feed - just chewed it right up without even noticing. The really horrible bit is that I'll bet the presence of a camera wasn't just a coincidence - whoever was taping events was trying to recreate an earlier accident. A bit like how in nature shows you always wonder if they gently prodded the millipede towards the trap-door spider.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-23 01:50 am (UTC)Eurgh. Well, cows do get chicken offal and dead chickens as part of their protein supplement in some (bad) capos. It's one of the factors that spreads bovine spongiform encephalitis. >_> But yeah, that latter part is really icky.
Maggie ate another of my baby turkeys to-day. She is in such disgrace.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 01:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-23 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-22 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-23 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-23 06:13 am (UTC)Pigs are terrifying. ;_;
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-24 03:02 am (UTC)