circle of life

I believe in animal rights. I have cried over the death of a chicken, I have held a baby lamb in my arms and promised to never eat it. But then I find myself spreading trout gut compost on sweet potato plants, or scuffing my fingers on animal bone dust in the pepper plants. As saddening or even perverse as it may be, I think that our use of these otherwise wasted materials constitutes a healthy allegiance to the circular, cyclical nature of life and death (not to put too heavy a hand on it). Maybe it's just that I can assuage my guilt over eating animal products (eggs, honey, milk) by contemplating the dearth of truly guilt-free dining. Maybe it's that in the onslaught of violence and greed I find every time I click to a news-page or listen to the radio, it comforts me to know that at least in this corner of the mountains, we are using every part of what has been, for better or worse, destroyed to supplement human life. At least the trout guts are not just flowing down a river, but rather being directed back to feed the soil. I guess the perverse yankee streak of realism that runs through me chuckles that organic vegetable gardening isn't quite as wholesome as certain shiny magazine pages might suggest. In that complication, however, and in all seriousness, I think using organic animal byproducts links our farm to the chains that connect life and death. And that makes spreading trout guts not quite so unappealing.