unicornduke: bomberqueen17 replied to your post: I know everyone thinks its...

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unicornduke:

bomberqueen17 replied to your post: I know everyone thinks its cute when deer makes…

holy jesus my b-i-l killed a deer and i held its feet while he field-dressed it and it was cooling and i just watched ticks dropping off and like AAAUUGGHH

oh god suddenly I want to hunt deer a lot less ew 

the newest internet deer sensation is that a deer walked into a store in colorado and they fed it and it came back with more deer friends like no no no no NO NO NO

I’ve seen that one.

And I’m like, someone illegally has been hand-feeding that thing so they can shoot it in the face later.

That is NOT GOOD. That is illegal in NY partly because do you know who else you’re feeding when you feed deer?

BEARS. GUESS HOW I KNOW THIS. GUESS HOW MUCH TROUBLE MY FRIENDS’ NEIGHBORS GOT IN WITH THE DEC WHEN WE TOLD ON THEM BECAUSE WE ALMOST GOT MURDERATED BY A FUCKING BLACK BEAR. It showed up all hey food sources what’s up and seemed offended when we were like AUGH NO WHAT AIIEE. (And then I got literally mugged by a deer on my way to the outhouse. This was a friend’s cabin in the Adirondacks. You see deer up there sure, but they don’t usually walk up to you in the dark and try to get in your pocket. What the fuck.)

I get it. I get it! Deer are magical woodland creatures. Deer are pretty and graceful and weird. And you can tame deer, and that’s kind of cool!

BUT. Deer are also disease vectors, part of a complex ecosystem that involves predators and other unpredictable animals and fucking BEARS, and deer are also insanely dangerous. They are quite big and very fast and extremely powerful and they are WILD ANIMALS.

And insofar as hunting– I mean, they’re hella tasty. And the ticks drop off pretty fast, so probably by the time you have them field-dressed and tagged and drag them back to wherever you’re going to do your breakdown of the carcass, there won’t be any left. But it’s still pretty gross.

(What else is gross is how many ticks wind up on the hogs. I don’t know what to do about that. It doesn’t seem to bother them too much, but I wish that there was some kind of organic-compatible bug spray solution or other, because I feel bad for them. But the hogs are gonna be Certified™ Organic next season so there’s no more room for messing about.) (I have no idea if people fly-spray their hogs like we used to for our horses. Is that a thing? It’s not as bad on pasture as if they were confined but it’s still, IDK, I feel bad for them.)
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I get so much Help when I sew, it’s unreal.

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I get so much Help when I sew, it’s unreal. I’m so lucky. … Chita I can’t see. I can’t see anything but you. Yes, yes, that’s the point, I get it.
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My dude had a rough day. And I was initially sort of unsympathetic, because. Listen. I have done all

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My dude had a rough day. And I was initially sort of unsympathetic, because. Listen. I have done all of the preparations for Christmas, from figuring out the schedule to buying the gifts. All he’s done is deal with the cat.

Until he explained, that’s partly why he feels so crappy.

I sent him on an errand tonight, apologetic that I was even asking him to go do a thing, I knew he’d had such a bad day, he’d said he was all Anxious and full of The Dread, and he’d been stressed-out doing [all of his] last-minute shopping [for his sister, because I did almost all of it for his nephew because you can’t fuck that up, it’s his only goddamn nephew, we did that in mid-november] and he was like, no no! tell me what to do! that’s fine!

and as he was putting on his boots he was saying, in a goofy voice, “Put me in, coach! I can do it!”

and I was like, what?

And he gestured vaguely at where I’m ass-deep in half-finished projects, and he was like, “You’ve been busting your ass for months to the best of your ability to get all this shit done and I haven’t done jack.”

Oh.

Well, both of us feel better now.
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Eating Meat Is Bad For The Planet: But What About Just Eating Less Meat?

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Eating Meat Is Bad For The Planet: But What About Just Eating Less Meat?:

rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

With the idea that any variety of meat reduction—whether it be veganism, vegetarianism, or just deciding to cut out meat one day a week—still benefits the planet, [Brian] Kateman founded the Reducetarian Foundation in 2014 while studying conservation biology at Columbia University. In The Reducetarian Solution, a new anthology edited by Kateman, thought leaders from Singer to economist Jeff Sachs to environmentalist Bill McKibben sound off on the reasons why less meat is a good thing for humans and the planet we inhabit—and why it’s more important to focus on gradual cutbacks and their benefits than forcing yourself into a category like vegan or “flexitarian,” where the focus might drift more toward obeying a set of rules than focusing on a specific global outcome.

The reasons, according to The Reducetarian Solution, are legion. The anthology contains no less than 72 short essays, organized into three overarching categories of mind, body, and planet that traverse every possible argument for meat reduction, from the moral-ethical (large-scale livestock operations expose animals to inhumane conditions), to the health and productivity focused (red meat is linked to sluggishness, heart disease, and cancer), to the environmental (meat production pollutes the air and is an inefficient use of resources). “I love the idea of all these different thought leaders coming together and being united on a single front,” Kateman says. “We don’t have to agree on everything. We don’t have to agree on what the ideal reduction is; we don’t have to agree on the most important cause areas. But we all agree that reducing societal consumption of animal products absolutely has to happen. And we’ll reach that common goal much faster if we work together than continuing to work in silos.”

Reducetarianism, Kateman says, differs crucially from categories like “flexitarian” and “semi-vegetarian” because while the latter describe people who primarily consume plant-based diets and occasionally “cheat” on their commitments (a concept for which Kateman has little patience—punishing yourself for taking the occasional bite of burger distracts from the fact that eating less meat overall is still a net positive), reducetarianism aims for inclusivity, and an acknowledgement, as Kateman writes in the anthology, “that people are at different stages of willingness and commitment to eating less meat.”

Oh this describes a lot of our chicken and pork customers though. They all have different reasons why they’re eating less meat, but really what it comes down to is that primarily, they’re being pickier about the meat they eat, and the first step in that is to stop buying the $5 whole chickens at Wal-Mart. When they buy chickens from us, well, the rock bottom price we can manage is more like $5 per pound, so necessarily, if you keep your food budget low, you can’t afford much meat. But that’s for an animal that you can know everything about– including, in some cases, killing it yourself. Some customers are so determined to take control of their meat eating that that’s one of the ways we get volunteers to help out on processing days. (Two of our most reliable assistants work in exchange for chicken feet so they can make their own bone broth. We don’t sell the feet, but they clean and process them while we’re cleaning up at the end of the slaughter, and that’s what they take home instead of money.) 

So a lot of people in my acquaintance have joined the above-described movement out of their own independent realization. It’s not that meat eating is in itself the problem (though for some of them, it is spurred by dietary issues; and some of their interest in locally-processed meat is just that they can be sure it’s free from contaminants), but that they want to be more deliberate about their consumption and purchasing in general, and meat is an excellent cornerstone issue for that.

An omnivorous diet is the most efficient one to pursue if you want to eat local, and if you can get your meat from a mixed-use operator, you know that slaughter waste becomes organic fertilizer on-site, and the waste the animals produced in life is also fertilizer immediately. That’s the whole ethos behind pastured animals. (The egg chickens are spending the winter tilling one of the hoop houses with their feet and beaks; we’ll move it, and them, in spring, and let the ground rest, and next year that will be excellent growing ground.)
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morethanonepage: fic idea, free for the taking: poe dameron writes in to the Ask A Manager blog with

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morethanonepage:

fic idea, free for the taking: poe dameron writes in to the Ask A Manager blog with advice for dealing with his new manager who condescends to him, calls him “honey”, and refuses to answer questions.
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thendstartsnow: gruene-teufel: This CIS propaganda poster has...

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thendstartsnow:

gruene-teufel:

This CIS propaganda poster has the most tangible real-world implications out of any Star Wars media I’ve recently seen

#anyhoo fuck the republic fuck the jedi the separatists were right and the empire is the natural fucking endpoint of the republic (via @darth-char)
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