Creatures

While the rest of the crew is up at Park City, I've been taking care of these bugs and the guinea pigs, aka "the pigs". I've made a schedule for our home farm for myself this week. First thing I do in the morning is put the pigs out to pasture, aka on the grass. We need to let them enjoy the grass and the time outside while it's summer time. Other than the pigs, we've got a lot of caterpillars! We have 20 big ones right now and more eggs and small caterpillars growing, this is the most we've ever had!

And it's pretty cool cause I've found all the eggs! We only have a small handful of milkweed plants in the back yard - like 8 small plants. I go check them for eggs in the morning after putting out the pigs, then I'll bring in a few leaves with eggs. My current opinion is that caterpillars might even be better household pets than guinea pigs. Though it's mostly cause of the short term commitment thing (the kids are slacking taking care of the guinea pigs and I'm ready to sell them, but then the girls repent and do better for a week or two...). I know I've been spending a bit too much time watching the caterpillars grow, especially when there is housework to do and the kitchen is a mess, but the monarchs are a fleeting moment in time. The dishes are forever, so they can wait. It's easier to slack on the household chores when everyone's gone. The house is also pretty quiet. I put Owen and Daniel to bed early and then come in here where the caterpillars are to blog. If you really listen, you can hear them all munching the leaves, they are cute little guys.

So, I've been thinking about animals and all of God's creatures on this earth. Monarchs are pretty cool, even if they do only live for about 3 months. Though it does seem like a lot of work for such a short life. What is the point of it all? What is the point of guinea pigs? They are cute, but they don't do much. I've always thought the point of farm animals was to be or make food for us, but since going vegan my opinion of that is changed, but I'm still pondering what their purpose is now. Do they have a right to live just to live and just because? Maybe cows are just supposed to eat grass and be cows. They don't have to be useful to us, do they? We let lots of other animals just be animals. Like this deer that grabbed a bite to eat as he passed through our backyard this morning -

A deer is a deer and that's okay. We should probably let cows be cows, pigs be pigs, and chickens be chickens. Tonight as we settled down for bed, Owen and Daniel played with toys while we had a pbs Nature program called "Touching the Wild" on in the background. Some guy named Joe Hutto who just loved the mule deer. He had this relationship with this mother deer and her fawn and they'd let him come close and then the mother deer died and the baby would run around looking for her all day and calling for her. The little deer survived and he loved her and said "I learned so much from her" - which I found interesting cause the deer never said anything to teach him, right, so no instruction, what kind of things did he learn from her? Just by her being a deer and doing deer things? He spent years with them and became part of the deer society. Interesting... There are so many animals out there, glad people can find what they love. We also recently watched a passport earth episode with a lady who has dedicated her life to rescuing elephants from the streets and putting them back in nature, she founded the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Anyway, I've just been pondering what the point of animals are and what kind of relationship we humans are supposed to have with them. But I really don't think we're supposed to kill them and eat them as much as we do, making a whole meat and dairy industry out of them. Talk about animal abuse. Poor cows. I caved in and had a little bit of ice cream last week for Owen's birthday, which turned into a lot of ice cream, and I wasn't eating it with thankfulness to God or the cow who provided the milk, I was mad at the ice cream for being so addictive to me and making me lose control. I thus vowed I'm not eating or buying ice cream anymore. I'm ready to move on from ice cream. Listening/watching this Dr. Klapper "Dairy Doubts" video over the weekend helped. I'm moving on, I don't want to be part of the mistreatment of cows anymore. It didn't use to bother me but I didn't really think about it, cause that's what cows were for, right? to give us milk and be meat. But I don't think that is their purpose anymore. I'm going to be come a cows' rights activist! Ha, save the cows. :) We'll see if I can start a movement lol, good luck with that eh!