So, it probably started around Thanksgiving. The kids' daycare was showcasing turkey songs, and at some point Eytan connected turkey the bird with turkey the food. "Does this turkey we're eating have animals in it?" "Sort of," we said, "it used to be an animal." And so since then, it's been on and off questions about which foods have animals in them, usually followed by a concern that he doesn't want to eat the ones that do. Mostly it's interesting which foods trigger the questions and which don't, and when the questions come and when they don't. Probably more interesting too in that it's all concurrent with the class I teach on meat production, where graduate students do the same sorts of thinking about the ethical and social and cultural and scientific implications of raising or eating meat... and it does all make me inch slightly back toward vegetarianism again :)
So first was Turkey. Then was Gigi. Gigi, one of the first goats that was born at our house in Washington State, got a bad case of parasites this fall (humid climates are trickier than dry ones, even with dewormer it seems). We treated her and she got better, but apparently, sometimes parasites can just knock everything out of wack with a goat. It probably didn't help either that she was already worn down from nursing babies, and it seems the parasites were just too taxing. One morning about a month ago Mike went out to feed everyone, and she had died. So we buried her in the woods, and it was pretty sad all around (pics below from when she was a baby and when she was a grownup). It also spurred, of course, lots of questions about what it means to die and why Gigi died and when (or if) she'll come back and what that all means...
So first Turkey, then Gigi, then Chickens. We got some chicks by mail-order this fall. And in order for them to stay warm on the journey, the chicken company sent us some extras, meat chickens which grow pretty quickly and therefore are by now ready to butcher. For Meat class, we had on the agenda to break down, i.e. cut up and cook (already dead) chickens (I co-teach with a culinary instructor), and so we figured that if some students wanted to come over the day before and help butcher, we could use those extra chickens for class. It was a day I had to go to the main campus, and Mike didn't have to work that day, so he was planning to host. But freezing rain that morning meant a delayed daycare start, which meant that the students arrived before I even left for daycare dropoff, which gave Eytan a lot of questions about what exactly they were there to do with the chickens. Given his recent discoveries of eating animals and of animals getting sick and dying, we tried to dodge a little, just to put the killing animals discussion off for a few weeks.
But then along came Bambi. Randomly, Eytan found a book on the shelf of the story Bambi and wanted to read it. This version of the story doesn't quite say that Bambi's mother was killed by hunters, but it leaves it just vague enough that you can't help but ask questions about what happened to her. So, of course, our dodgeball efforts were foiled, and we circled back around to learning about animals dying and animals being eaten and animals being killed. It's okay, these are all important concepts to wrestle with at some point. But it's given us a bit of a death theme the past couple of months. Oh, and just to note, the students didn't end up killing the chickens that day. Mike's hand slipped while he was trimming down a cone for butchering (putting the chicken upside down in a traffic cone tends to make the job a little easier and faster), and ended up with five stitches, and the chickens got a reprieve for a couple of weeks.
In less morbid news, last month we went to NJ for Mike's uncle's wedding, and got to see lots of family members (who, of course, I don't have pictures of, but these are courtesy of Grandma Kathy).
We also had some break from school/daycare for a few days here and there, and went to the National Aviary one day to see birds (compare the picture below with this one (scroll down in this pre-Lieli post)).
Li'el, meanwhile, is spending her days running and talking and putting stuffed animals down for naps and checking everything out.
Eytan is cleaning and doing all sorts of "works" (what they call activities) in daycare.
And this semester, my schedule is a little lighter (just two (repeat) classes, both co-taught, and I am backing mostly out of them after the first 5 weeks or so once new baby arrives). Mike is subbing a little more often than in the fall, and although I can't say we are living a leisurely existence, I will say that it's not quite as terribly nutso as it was last semester, so far at least, so that's a slight relief.
That's pretty much the news from here. Hi to all, til next time.
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