And the Cycle Continues: Summer Week #19 – 10/15/25

Every year right around this time, when the mono crop fields around us have gone tan and the reds, faded yellows, and orange colors are just beginning to spread across tree branches, it’s time to say goodbye to the pigs. 

You know us as vegetable farmers, and that is certainly our main occupation. However we do raise broiler chickens and pigs on a homestead level. On a very small scale, we harness the energy of the sun into the flesh of animals that we eat mostly in winter & spring. Nature’s solar batteries. 

Slaughtering an animal is never easy. It does not get easier with each successive year.  To see the death of something and not feel sadness and grief is a sign of spiritual deadness is my opinion. Every life I take feels heavy, real, and so very sad. The broilers I harvest myself. I hug each bird, stroke its head and say “thank you, and I’m sorry.”  Sometimes friends help me with the slaughter, and while I’m grateful, I also feel uneasy when I’m not able to say thank you and goodbye to each and every bird.

The pigs, however, I do not slaughter personally. I do not have the skillset, nor do I have the emotional ability. For years we used to load them on a trailer and take them to a processor, who would both slaughter and process the animals. Loading the pigs on the trailer, however, was an ordeal for them. And while I was never given permission to watch their slaughter (I asked many times), I know that the last few hours of my pigs’ lives were very stressful and scary.  A bumpy ride trapped in a trailer, followed by strangers pushing them around with the scent of death wafting in the air. That’s why I was so happy to find Herb of H & D Processing. Herb travels to my farm and uses a rifle to shoot the pigs on site. He processes them into hanging halves and then takes them to a meat processor where the bacon and sausages are made. 

I am so grateful for the gift of being able to watch my pigs be killed. Some of you may feel shocked and uneasy by that statement, I know. But I feel incredibly strongly that if I am going to eat meat, it should be raised humanely and I should not be shielded from their deaths. I believe that when we disconnect ourselves from the killing of things, from the living energy of our food, we loose something spiritual, a connection between ourselves and all other living things. And the more we disconnect ourselves from this energy 7 reality, the more we are able to do damage and cause suffering, unknowingly. So I bear witness to the death of my animals. 

My alarm went off early this morning. I set it a half hour early so that I could have quiet time with my animals. In my pajamas, I grabbed 5 buttery homemade chocolate chip cookies and stepped into my muck boots. The sun was rising a mellow, gorgeous pink as I walked down to the pen. I stepped over the metal fence, and in turn I gave each pig a cookie. I gave ear scratches to the ones that would let me. As they curiously snorted at me for more yumminess, I hopped back over the pen fence. They kept snorting at me for grain, which I could not give them (not good for the slaughter). Instead, I looked each one in turn into their intelligent, huge eyes and said, “I’m sorry and thankyou” and cried.

When Herb arrived, he was all business, which I was grateful for. I stood about 25 feet away by the barn as I watched Herb carefully step into the pen with his rifle. He’s an expert shot. Five shots. Five pigs down clean in just a couple of minutes. Michael stood by me and put his arm around my shoulders as I sobbed. My buddies for the last 5 months, now laying in their own scarlet blood, the life energy literally shaking out of them. 

That transition, from a warm living being into something I eat, that moment of time and transition feels grievous and holy to me. I’m not a traditionally religious person, but bearing witness to the sacrifice of a living being that will in turn feed my body and the bodies of my children, it is holy to me. A transfer of energy that connects us to the cycle of life. A transfer of life to life that is heavy and real. 

I appreciate the weight of this.

Soon I was using heavy equipment to move the pigs’ bodies out of the pen to Herb’s truck. I forced myself to watch the steam rise from the bodies, still warm and jiggly with the fluidity of life. I positioned each animal by the truck as Herb instructed, and then soon they became pork. The transition complete.

But I don’t forget my buddies. Every time pork is on my table, I try to thank them again.

Yesterday my friend taught me a word I’d never heard before – noetic. I understand it be the concept of inner knowledge, intuitions, understandings that can’t necessarily be explained with words. The experience of raising pigs, witnessing their slaughter, and eating them very much has a noetic component for me. There is a connection to something deeper through this experience that I don’t have language for. 

The cycle of life and the movement of energy continues. It is profound, and I am deeply grateful to be a part of it.  

Sincerely, Farmer Cassie

Postscript #1: If you have any interest in eating local, organic, pasture raised pork that is slaughtered on farm, we do have a farm neighbor who does this at a larger scale and I would gladly connect you. 

Postscript #2: Thank you for your support this season. When we choose to connect ourselves to the food we eat, we are tending the living, breathing energetic connection that flows through us all. Thank you for tapping into that this season. And thank you for supporting our family farm – all of us, Michael, Cassie, Zea, Sora, & Juna.

Sincerely, 
Farmer Cassie