choose your eggs, very carefully...

A Rooster ought to get to be, what he was meant to be, if only for a little while...

The recent undercover expose about life and death in America's large Chicken hatcheries is mind boggling, disturbing and oh so sad. Especially for those of us who really know and love Chickens.

A disturbing piece of footage depicting newly hatched male chicks being culled out and flung, fluffy and full of life, into an oversize macerating meat grinder. These are the kinds of things that go on every single day in the commercial meat farming industry. Business as usual. We need to be aware that someone suffers and loses when we buy meat, eggs and dairy from a cooler in the supermarket. I am not necessarily suggesting that we all become vegans--although that would be great--but we need to become more aware and respectful of the sacrifice that is made by the animals we eat. We need to support ethical farming practices and be willing to do without sometimes. Voting with our dollars is the clearest message that we can send. Big industry follows where we lead, lets get informed and change the way businesses is done. There just has to be a better way!

Looking in, for number one...

It began slowly for me, looking inward for number one. The person with a voice, the person with a vote, the person who, despite what I was always lead to believe, really can make a difference.

My husband and I had begun to watch less and less TV before the lightning strike that fried our television for good. We would declare media free nights where we would hang out, talk and just enjoy being together. When we bought our new TV, we decided to unhook our cable and only watch rental movies. We listen to music a lot more now and have re-discovered the joy of University sponsored radio and podcasts and of reading our favorite newspaper online.

I am quiet a lot more now. Quiet at first, was an uncomfortable place to be; worry, fear and anxiety were busily looking for places to sit as I pulled more chairs away from the table of procrastination and inertia. Add more silence...and worry, fear and inertia began to transform into ideas and doing. I feel like I am waking up, having my own thoughts; commercial jingles and tag-lines no longer roam my brain like crowded sheep.

I am beginning to hear more deeply into my very own world now; birds, dogs, children playing, the music of people in the street, the beautiful and raucous sound of life happening all around me.

I like being me, I like having a choice, I like being awake. I am happily, a work-in-progress, who is making more art, writing, cooking, doing and looking in for number one...