I eat meat, but I don’t always like to do so. If I can put myself in a situation where I can raise my own animal, give it the good life that it deserves, come to know it, then I will always enjoy the meat that I get from it. I can thank it by doing my best to treat its body and its life with respect.

“Meat is not merely flesh.” John Seymour wrote. “Each animal has its own life saga…” I have come to realize the truth in that statement. It is because knowing that saga gives us a relationship to the meat that we have on our plate; to all food that we eat. It makes the food taste better, we feel better. When we have memories on our dinner plate we understand the cost of putting it there.

I have wanted, for many years now, a place of my own to raise food, to work. And while my desire has been couched in a need to fend for myself, to make my own way, to prove to myself that I can, and to live in harmony (the best I can) with nature, it is in no small part because I want those memories.

I was not raised on a farm, and had only the faintest experiences on my grandfather’s ranch when I was young. But I have been lucky enough to have had a taste of the freedom (that word so many sling around) that comes from having memories mixed in with the food on my plate.