I have a job in the butcher shop this week. I don’t have to go, but if I don’t, in nine months there won’t be anything to eat. I like to eat, so I go to my job.
With my previous job it was different. If I didn’t go then I would have to listen to my boss deal with me. And I probably wouldn’t get paid. Going to that job did not seem directly connected to eating, although I did use $ from the job to buy food, that I would eat. Now I go to the job to harvest the food that I will eat. No job, no eat. Simple.
Its not really a job but it feels like a job more than anything else I do here on the farm. There is a leader and I am the minion. Not really but I can’t do the job without the leader, whereas he could do the job with out me. He doesn’t want to do my part of the job and I don’t even want to learn his part of the job, so it all works out.
In the tall, tall cooler, hangs a one thousand pound animal carcass. It is our food for one year. Its also part of our money system because we regularly trade bits of meat for other items that we want or need. That big beef hanging there is significant, its important, can’t just space out on this one.
The leader’s part involves knowing where to cut the big beef. He has knowledge and experience and the will, to turn this huge thing into small cuts that can be wrapped up for the freezer. Yes, I am the wrapper. I’m good at it because I’m so obsessive. Our meat can stay in the freezer for two years perfectly safe from freezer burn. Its so intimidating to me to look at the entire side of an animal just hanging there. But the leader looks at it, makes a decision, and he cuts it. He cuts through meat with a sharp knife and he cuts through bone with a hand saw. That is one of the parts of the job that I love, when he calls me away from wrapping into the cooler, and says, “catch that when it comes free”. I love to feel strong and use my body so holding a 45 pound piece of raw beef while a determined man with a saw cuts through bone makes me feel like a bad-ass. Then he grabs the knife to finish the cut and whoop, the hook it was hanging from rises up and my body braces against the weight now fully in my arms. I got it, I’m a strong woman farmer. I carry it out of the cooler and slap it on the butcher’s block. Yeah, that part is really fun.
Then leader comes out and looks at the huge slab and again, he makes a decision of where to cut. He wrestles the chunk onto the band saw, wiggles the meat into the correct position, turns the saw on and eeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzz, cuts off a steak, or something. He cuts that entire big beef into roasts, ribs, steaks, round steaks, soup bones, brisket, and chunks for hamburger. Its amazing to me, so impressive. I so, so appreciate that he can do this and mostly that he wants to and is able to do it.
I guess that’s sort of where this started. I can’t speak for him about whether or not he wants to do it. I know for me that I also make decisions here on the farm. I decided that I want to live like this, I want to participate in harvesting meat. I decided that I don’t want a job that pays money, money I would use to buy food. I want to put in any labor necessary to harvest my own food. So when its the week that we spend at the butcher shop, I want to go. I want to go to my job at the butcher shop. I know I don’t have to go. I choose to go. I desire to go because of the decision I made about what I want to eat. So its simple. Some times it feels like I don’t want to go and so I immediately change my attitude. I am conscious of how I’m feeling and I change things up easily when I’m feeling lazy or resistant.
Its the Freedom. That’s what gets me going. By walking an eighth of a mile down the road to the butcher shop, I am claiming my freedom. That is an awesome feeling and it is exhilarating to know that I am Free. Its a choice I make every day, to be free. I think it is possible to see the big beef as commanding us to cut it up and so the job in the butcher shop becomes a job, something we “have” to do. The details are the same but the perspective is different. I like my perspective. I am bouncing down the road, claiming freedom, filled with energy from the universal source. I made my decision and I’m loyal to it and I’m tapped in to the infinite stream of love energy. I’m ready, let’s go to work.
