GROWING UP ON A FARM teaches you some fairly brutal lessons about life’s realities. One of them, of course, is “Where does meat come from?” A matter settled fairly early on for me, given that ours was a sheep farm, where my dad would occasionally do his own butchery. This explains my 30-year stint of vegetarianism, or pescetarianism at least; my own slightly wonky approach to matters dietary is that I am prepared to eat anything I would also be prepared personally to kill. I’m okay with knocking over a fish, even happier to deprive a prawn of its life. Crabs can expect no nomenclatural solidarity from me or my family.
But a chicken: nope. You can go on your way, friend. I like your beady little eyes and your innate sense of physical theatre with that comb. You and your four-legged acquaintances need fear nothing from me.
Another lesson you learn on a farm is the sharp limits the natural world imposes – sometimes summarily – on human effort and agency. There is nothing that pops you right back in your little box as a human
