Birgit wrote:
Karen,
[...]
I've struggled with the horse meat issue. Horse slaughter is not allowed in the US for human consumption any more so all the horses get shipped to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. If horses have to be put down and they don't have infectious diseases I actually wish they could be put down humanely without drugs so that the meat could be used rather than getting wasted. I sure wouldn't want to watch the butchering though.
I guess I put enough different topics in this post that it's impossible to put it where it belongs.
Birgit
I am unsettled about this. My rational mind agrees with slaughter and consumption. Another part of me can't abide it at all.
I know that in the end we are all food, or potentially so, for something, even if only microbes.
Even ash from bodies can be used in some manner.
Since I'm going to ash, probably after my body is used for medical school, my ideal would be to store it and wait for Altea to pass. Not Bonnie, of course, since she likely has 20 to thirty years ahead of her.
I have a connection with Altea that I do not with Bonnie. Bonnie is cute, a darling, and lovable, but Altea and I, even with her careful and cautious aloofness, is more of a heart connection. I suspect her life has been rathre like my difficult childhood. Too much loss, too much abuse, too much isolation. (Which is probably more than you wanted to know).
If I had my druthers I'd like Altea's beautiful body to be placed within a great pile of logs from our woods, and her body burned with a proper ceremony for the gallant animal she is to me. She is a special soul trapped in a creature that while beautiful cannot compare with her immense spirit.
A funeral pyre seems the most respectful end for her vessel.
I wouldn't mind either saving her ashes, or mine, according to who passes out of this life first, and mixing them with some other beloved's ashes too, and then, in time, giving them all to the waters of the river we live near. (Kate and I were married beside this river - on purpose).
No, I don't think of Altea, or Bonnie (despite the name I've given her), going for food though I probably shouldn't be so squeamish.
Donald, Altea, and Bonnie Cupcake