My husband just quit

Ok,a few years ago,through all the planning,talking,deciding what we wanted to do,we had agreed we wanted to be more self sufficient,more self reliant,and do more things for ourselves,including growing our own food and raising a few animals.

Here comes 2012...and there goes any and all help from my husband who no longer wants anything to do with gardening or animal raising.....or any type of work for that matter.

From simple requests like "Hey honey will you water the rabbits for me?"

Or asking him to get a fire going in the fire pit so we can burn off last year's plant and weed remains....he's done....he's quit....

So as of now,anything that must be done,either has to be taken care of by me alone,or I need to find someone who can do it for me.I can no longer count on the man I married to help me reach my dreams.

I'm already paying someone to build the new rabbitry,which will provide food and fertilizer.

I'm having one of those days where I wanna throw my hands up and walk away,start over somewhere new....BUT I am tougher than that,and if anyone leaves,it ain't gonna be me....

This is and always will be the lifestyle I want,and this year I've got people asking me if they can BUY produce from us this year...I've got the start of something really good here,and with or without his help,I will get it done.

I'm starting to see where I am actually helping people learn,helping people see that good,healthy food can be grown at home,and nearly ready to have onsite classes teaching people how to do this(next year for sure)...

It doesn't matter if it's through this blog,through my facebook page,or in person,my goals are to teach others to do what I am doing,to be more self reliant,and self sufficient,and depend less on the grocery store and commercially grown food...

On the subject of meat....

Have you ever asked an inner city kid where hamburger comes from? Or milk?
More likely than not,the kid's answer is going to be the grocery store.

Have you ever seen the newspaper ad a person wrote about hunters,and how they should leave animals alone,and buy their meat from the grocery store so no animals get hurt? Yep,that was a real ad...by a real person....

Well,just in case you're from Mars or some place similar,meat,in any form,comes from an animal.It doesn't matter if it's bacon(mmm...my beloved bacon...)or steak,or chicken...in order for you to have meat to consume as part of your diet,an animal must gives it's life for you to be able to eat meat.

I know there are TONS of animal rights activists out there,who will try to convince you that tofu is better than meat..um....no...I don't think so...pass the steak please...

Now I am not going to post gory photos of sick cows,or dirty slaughter houses,but I am going to tell you,if you have not yet been introduced to the facts of life,that meat does,and always will come from an animal...and fish..fish have to be caught and die in order for you to eat them,so let's not forget about fish.

At one point in my life,I was very much against hunting,against eating meat,against a lot of things related to animals and them being killed...then reality struck me...I'm not sure at what point this happened,but it did....

Hunters NEED to hunt...not just to kill a deer,or put some venison on the table,or a big rack on the wall,but hunters need to hunt,because we humans were STUPID and killed off almost all the natural predators that deer had....if there is not something to control the population,we'd have deer in amounts like rats in a New York sewer system....

Whitetail deer,given free reign will quickly overpopulate an area,often causing themselves to starve,or contract diseases because of overcrowding.Would you rather have a few hunters out in the woods during deer season,or woods,and parks,and farm fields,and your backyard filled with sickly deer that have eaten themselves out of food,inbred due to local overcrowding,and possibly carrying diseases that could be spread to livestock and possibly to yourself....yeah,me either...hunters,have at it..

Let me make one thing clear though,as much as I do love a good steak,and my morning bacon,I am very much against large feed lots where pigs and cattle are forced to live in unnaturally crowded conditions,fed things that are not part of an animal's natural diet,and trucked by the hundreds to their doom...that I am against....

I do believe that if we are going to eat them,then they at the very least deserve to be treated well,raised as humanely as possible in conditions as comfortable as we can make them.There is no excuse in the world for starving an animal,allowing it to suffer in illness or with an injury in pain needlessly....take good care of them.

Yes,we are raising rabbits to eat,and we take very good care of them,we keep them safe from the local wildlife,fed,watered,in clean cages,and they get plenty of fresh air and natural daylight.If one is ill,we treat it as needed,even if that means a vet bill costing much more than you could buy another rabbit for.
We owe it to them not to let them suffer.

So,now that we've cleared that up.What can you do to make sure the animal you are eating didn't suffer a life of misery and pain? Well for starters,if you can,raise your own.If you can't raise your own,buy only from local sources.There are a lot of good farms out there raising beef cattle so that you can purchase it from them,look up a few,they're good people.If that's still not an option for you(which I find unlikely)you can buy direct from a local small meat packer.There's one near here,that when you place an order,he will contact local farmers and buy the animal from them...remember,the key word is LOCAL...

In the long run,our plan is to let the current supply in the freezer run down while we save up enough money to refill the freezer with locally raised beef and pork.The rabbits we raise will replacing chicken,so for now chicken is off the menu.