The reality of proper, charitable and stewardship-oriented animal-management includes viscerally, the reality of death. However, this type of death is not that which arrives stealthily, without consideration and certainly at the teeth of a foregone predator, speed-defying machination or insidious disease, but at the timely, calculated and precise hand of a man.
Verbose the opening has been – and yet the breath best characterized by the first chosen culling from an animal-managing program – one that man hopes is colored by charity proper stewardship – is likely pregnant with thought and trembling hands. And then – it’s over. The herd grazes, the flock forages and the blood released is instantaneously reminiscent of nitrogen and silence.
The rooster is dead. His violence was incalculable. The excuse supports the act. And the act supports the excuse. And the act is honest. And the excuse is palpable.
Farming, homesteading and animal-management, done with stewardship in mind, is not easy. It is real, however. And this acute sense of the real communicates a greater lesson that this type of life is a responsibility. Sacrifice begets life.