Firefighters that saved piglets rewarded with sausage 6 months later.


NeuroTypical
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I'm seeing people commenting on this news story all over the place:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/23/firefighters-saved-some-piglets-from-a-blaze-then-they-ate-them-as-sausages/?utm_term=.cfd69965048b

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Way back in February, a band of English firefighters rescued 18 baby pigs and two sows from a burning barn. 

...grateful farm manager Rachel Rivers promised she'd soon send along a little thank you gift.

Just about six months later, she followed through, offering up a collection of sausages made from the meat of the very pigs the firefighters had saved. The grateful public servants of the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service celebrated with a barbecue.

PETA is, of course, ticked off.  But I'm surprised by the number of people I know who also think something is wrong here.  So what do folks think?  Is there something wrong here?  If so, why do you think that?

I have some relevant facts to share, and a story of personal growth, at some point.

Edited by NeuroTypical
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10 minutes ago, person0 said:

A true shepherd will risk his life to save his sheep.  About a year later he will be having lamb chops.  I don't see the problem with doing the same with pigs.

<shaking head> @person0, @person0, @person0...  Everyone knows you can't get lamb chops out of pigs.  You get pork chops from pigs ... or pork roast, or ribs, or sausage, or bacon.  (Why you'd want pork chops or pork roast, I cannot begin to comprehend, but that's beside the point.)

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4 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I see the humor-haw haw haw-but what was the point of risking firefighter lives to save them if you were just going to kill them a few days later? 

6 months later, Gator.  After they had grown from piglets to pigs.  

And the point is that it costs money, time, and effort to raise stuff that becomes food.  The firefighters did more than save life, they kept the farmers from experiencing a loss of money/time/effort.   It's sort of like if they put out a fire that threatened a recently-planted potato field, and the folks were able to raise the trees to adulthood and then shared some of the potatoes. 

Here's the hidden concept lost to many: Wasting meat is not ethical.

Law of the harvest, city boy!

Edited by NeuroTypical
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Guest MormonGator
Just now, NeuroTypical said:

6 months later, Gator.  After they had grown from piglets to pigs.  

And the point is that it costs money, time, and effort to raise stuff that becomes food.  The firefighters did more than save life, they kept the farmers from experiencing a loss of money/time/effort.   It's sort of like if they put out a fire that threatened a recently-planted potato field, and the folks were able to raise the trees to adulthood and then shared some of the potatoes. 

Law of the harvest, city boy!

 I just don't get it. Sorry. 

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Guest MormonGator
12 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Law of the harvest, city boy!

 

14 minutes ago, zil said:

It probably had something to do with the adrenaline rush... ;)

When you two come to my house for dinner I'm going to serve my faux-meat products and see if you can tell the difference. :)

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15 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

 I just don't get it. Sorry. 

Fair enough.  I will share my personal story of growth.

Wife and kids embarked into things 4-H, and we got chickens and turkeys and stuff.  When it was fall, I got the mixed blessing of being sent to the meat processing folks, turn some of our chickens into "chicken".  Wife already knew all this stuff, but daughters and I learned.  We all cried as we loaded them up.  It was a somber and quiet ride back.  Wife taught daughters where their food comes from, and we're all more mature now.

That wasn't the story - here's the story:

The next spring, they sent me again, with more chickens.  These chickens weren't culled in the fall.  We kept them through the winter.  I was loading them up at 5am, shivering in the cold, making sure they would have protection from the wind as I drove to the plant.  Because you treat life with respect, and making critters suffer, even if they're going to be dead in an hour, isn't what you do.   As I loaded them up, several things dawned on me.  First, they'd been in our barn the entire winter, which had been a heck of a lot colder than this morning.  That was fine - chickens are just fine pretty much no matter how cold it gets - as long as they're dry and out of the wind.  But it wasn't like they were out frolicking in the sun eating bugs.  When you're livestock, winter is something you endure and live through - not something you particularly enjoy.  It's a law of reality.

It also dawned on me that these chickens had been perfectly ready to go to the processors last fall, and they had endured the winter because I had NOT taken them to be processed.  That was the personal growth I'm talking about - these critters were born to live and then die and be food.  It was their nature.  Their God-given purpose.  

It dawned on me that these tiny-brained feathery critters understood this better than I did.  I anthromorphized a discussion with them when I got back.  

Wife: How did they do?
Me: Just fine.  They weren't happy with me though.
Wife: What do you mean?
Me: They kept calling me fat boy.  They said "It's about dang time.  Wake us up early to take us on a drive that should have happened last year.  We were cold last winter, fat boy."

I learned about stewardship over the earth and the creatures that crawl upon it that day.   I learned about the law of the harvest.   I got no better way to explain it than this.  If you still don't get it, maybe it takes actually raising something and killing it to teach this lesson.

The firefighters did right by the piglets, and the farmers did right by the firefighters.  To have let those piglets die would have been unethical.  To expect the saved piglets to be anything besides pigs, would have been to ignore the law of the harvest.

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@NeuroTypical, that's an awesome story.  I wanted to like it 100 times.

A similar concept was taught to me by a friend who was aghast that I have family members who run cockfighting tournaments.  Banning the practice is not necessarily to save the roosters.  Banning the practice is to save the humans.  That's what he said.

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Here's some of our current crop of potatoes growing on the tree.  Those brown turkeys up top are like 4 years old.  They've successfully petitioned for exemptions from the law of the harvest, because they're too dang fabulous to go into the pot.  Plus, they're like 40 pounds each now and wouldn't fit in anyone's oven anyway.

 

Untitled.png

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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Here's some of our current crop of potatoes growing on the tree.  Those brown turkeys up top are like 4 years old.  They've successfully petitioned for exemptions from the law of the harvest, because they're too dang fabulous to go into the pot.  Plus, they're like 40 pounds each now and wouldn't fit in anyone's oven anyway.

 

Untitled.png

Whoa whoa whoa... I don't see no silkies!

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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

I see the humor-haw haw haw-but what was the point of risking firefighter lives to save them if you were just going to kill them a few days later? 

 TO every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3  A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 

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My city is currently arguing chickens, which made me browse the blogosphere. Great stories about people trying to get others to take their elderly chickens as pets. Best line I recall paraphrased, I could fill my freezer with all the free pet chicken offers.

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Guest MormonGator
On 8/25/2017 at 2:28 PM, askandanswer said:

 TO every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3  A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 

I would have done what the president does during thanksgiving with a few select turkeys. Pardon em' 

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