S-W-I-N-E

    GD told us a couple years ago that he did not want to raise animals for meat if those animals had eyes. I guess he didn't want to look his food in the eye, which I don't think is unreasonable for a preschooler.  However, about a year ago, right after eating a delicious Christmas ham, G started talking about getting some pigs.  

     GD was excited about the prospect of pig farming. My mom asked him, "Would you be all right with raising pigs for meat even if they have eyes?"

     "Well," GD answered, "I really like bacon." 

     And so it was tentivitely decided that we would be getting a pig and naming it Christmas Ham. 

     But after a rough winter losing 21 chickens and a goat, we decided it was best to wait to add to our livestock collection.  Until a few weeks ago when we were sitting around the table watching the boys chow down on ribs. That's when G started talking seriously again about getting some S-W-I-N-E. 

      G has learned it is unwise to just show up with livestock without warning me first. I don't mind surprises, I would just rather they not have four legs and require food and housing. So over the next couple weeks he asked me several times about getting a S-W-I-N-E.

      And then gradually that became two S-W-I-N-E, because "it really wouldn't be much more work for twice as much meat."  Whatever. 

       

         Now, there are two reasons to refer to your pigs as S-W-I-N-E. 

1.  You automatically spell everything because you think you're fooling your children but, really, there's no fooling them (after all, I have been trying to teach them to spell). 

2. S-W-I-N-E is much less endearing than calling them P-I-G-S. P-I-G-S conjures up images of prancing piglets and children's storybook characters. It's harder to become attached to S-W-I-N-E before you send them off to the butcher. 

After putting a down payment on two partially grown S-W-I-N-E (yes, around here you do need to reserve your craiglists swine before someone else snatches up the bargain), we did finally tell the boys we were getting some future bacon.  

     They were pretty ecstatic at the prospect of being swine farmers. They insisted on going to pick up the swine and go out to check on them everyday saying, "We're going to eat you someday."  We do have an agreement with them that they won't be required to do any chores for the swine because they don't want to become too attached to them. 

       I think that's wise.  I don't do any chores for them either. The pink one is just too happy to see me for me eat him someday.   He (or she?  I didn't ask, I don't want to know, my food does not have a gender) looks at me with those happy eyes and all I can think about is Babe or Wilbur. 

     And that's why food shouldn't have eyes. 

(No picture of the swine, we may get too attached to them if they're in our photo album)