The Pigs

It’s the annual harvest, a spiritual discipline I told the Men’s Circle.

How I make direct emotional contact with eating meat.

These girls - saddle back sisters - have been in our care for 7 months - since they were 11 weeks old. We’ve fed them twice a day, kept the water going even when our neighbor had turned it off, not told us and we spent a week looking for the leak.

They trust me - nuzzle their wet noses against me - want the pat and the ear scratch - I am their husband in this circle of life’s web. And when I take the rifle to them next Saturday I will feel an enormous sense of responsibility for making it quick and painless.

More than my technique - though utterly important - is the calm and care I take - the presence I must hold as they, one by one, go to the gallows.

Right now I wonder - do they feel the inevitable end?

Like Pig in Charlotte’s Web - do they fret and conjure up escape plans?

Perhaps.

I have put them in the lushest pasture for their final week - they are having fun scratching against the trees and the water tower - the first really solid things they had to push against all their lives.

And in my dreams - they will come - my vegan girlfriend overseas - conveniently, or not - while we once again prepare the fire - invite our friends to help and make quite a ritual of the whole ordeal.