Having grown up on a dairy farm, I learned many, many moons ago to never, ever name an animal that might end up being your food someday. There is nothing more devastating than sitting down to a steak dinner with your parents and having your dad say, “Yep, old Rollie sure makes good eating” when Rollie was my pet! It put me off steaks for quite a few years, although I have gotten back on that wagon.
As the wife of a dairy farmer turned beef farmer, I have kept that lesson in the front of my mind. Interestingly, I also learned that I have amazing powers that can control whether a calf will live or die. All it takes is for me to look at a calf and say, “Ooooh, he is so cute!” and you can bet dollars to donuts that the calf will not survive longer than three more days. After a few such incidents, I decided that all of our calves are ugly as a mud fence in the rain, and I refrain from comment.
New lesson learned…not only don’t name your food, don’t comment on its looks or personality!
Animals that are allowed to be named on a farm are anything that won’t end up in the food supply. Cats, dogs, birds, donkeys, horses all fall in this category. Cats especially are hard to name even (or maybe especially) when they are outdoor cats. We used to have the standard Whiskers, Purrty, Mama Kitty, and so on. Those got boring, and I tried to get creative, such as with Oscar and Felix, our very own odd couple. Sadly, Felix didn’t survive an especially harsh winter, and Oscar ended up part of an even odder couple…our lab-Rottweiler-dalmatian mix farm dog named Dipstick. Either Oscar thought he was a dog, or Dipstick thought he was a cat. Unfortunately, Oscar got into something that disagreed with him and passed away during the night about six months ago.
On a side note, Dipstick lives up to (or down to, depending on your viewpoint) his name. Young Man named him because his tail is white at the end…like someone dipped it in paint. This poor creature was doomed from birth. Having lost out on being cute or smart, he has only one redeeming trait and that is being able to maintain a speed of 40 mph for a quarter mile or more. Not something to really write home about. Captain insists if we had named him Einstein, he wouldn’t be dumb as dirt, but I’m not entirely sure I believe that.
Young Man and Princess had kittens when they were in elementary school. Young Man named his Mashy (for mashed potatoes…his favorite food at the time) and Princess named hers Colonel (for unknown reasons). They each met an untimely demise in vehicle-versus-cat incidents. That was the end of indoor cats for us until just a year or so ago when Princess was gifted a kitten from some friends of ours, and she promptly named the kitty...Princess. Feline Princess was kind of a pain in the butt, but at least she had the cute factor going for her.
Human Princess was a college student at the time, so feline Princess stayed with us while her master was away during school terms. It then came to my attention that human Princess would not be taking feline Princess when she moved out of our house into her own apartment. This didn’t bother me so much because I happened to like the cat, but Captain was not pleased. In the end, it did not matter how we felt about it because feline Princess took an unprovoked swipe at Cubby at Christmastime, so she was re-gifted to a friend’s mother. They are getting along nicely, by the way.
Captain is more of a dog person, although he did complain when Young Man’s house dog stayed here for awhile after Young Man moved out. However, in Captain’s defense, Young Man’s house dog was kind of a pain in the butt. He was a mini Pomeranian named Chewy. We first interpreted this as a reference to his resemblance to that lovable character from Star Wars…Chewbacca. That theory lasted about two days until Chewy…chewed. Everything. Shoes, phone charger cords, Kleenexes, and scissor handles. He was lucky he had the cute factor going for him or he would have been keeping company with the Odd Couple outside! I am pleased to say that Chewy now lives with his rightful masters, Young Man and Mama Bear.
This dilemma of not naming farm animals only came to mind this morning because we not only have a hog at the locker ready to pick up, but we loaded out a steer this morning for butcher. Bottom line is to never, ever name something that is part of the food chain; never comment on an animal'
No comments:
Post a Comment