Personal Narrative

Pets are Friends and Food

It was a hot summer day in Northern California.  My family had only been living on the ranch for about a year now.  We moved to the ranch from the San Francisco Bay Area when I was 11 years old.  I really enjoyed the country life.  It always took forever to get anywhere but I was starting to get used to it.  Besides, I loved having so many animals.  Since we moved to Little Shasta we had been able to get many more pets.  We had horses, dogs, chickens and goats.  The goats were so much fun.  We originally got only two goats.  They were African Pygmy goats so they were about the size of a medium dog.  Their names were Spike and Pepper.  Pepper was a little fat when we got her but it was no big deal.  We didn’t think anything of her being on the fat side until she kept getting fatter and fatter.  It was then that we realized she was pregnant.  Before she had her babies she was about as wide as she was tall.  When we came out one day to our amazement Pepper was not pregnant with one baby, but with two babies.  They were so cute.  We named them Ricky and Lucy.  They were a lot of fun to have around but at the same time they were quite a nuisance.  The worst one was Spike.  We called her Spike because she was the only one with horns.  She was always getting her head stuck in the fence, and then she couldn’t get back out.  The worst part about Spike was she was not very friendly.  Unlike the other goats, you could not walk up to Spike.  It was then that my dad decided that four goats were too much.  He decided to give the goat to a neighbor named Elias.  When my dad gave the goat to Elias he knew exactly what he wanted with the goat, a barbeque.  I heard my dad mention to my little brother that Elias was having a barbeque and that Spike was on the menu.

I was standing out in the garden with my mom when Elias pulled up in his truck. We greeted him and asked what was going on.

            Mom: “Hey what is that you have there?”

            Elias: “It is something that Brian wanted to try.”

            Mom: “Really?”

My mom then proceeded to have a short conversation with him in Spanish.  I could not understand a word they were saying but I was smart at putting two-and-two together.  I knew that a barbeque of my former pet goat Spike was being hosted by Elias and now he had some strange dish that my mom didn’t want me to know what it was.  It was settled that he had brought over what was left of Spike.  That was my little pet goat only a month earlier and I wanted nothing to do with what was in that Tupperware dish he brought over.

A Few Years Later

It was a couple months after the county fair.  We had got back the meat from the animals that my dad’s business bought at the fair, as well as the meat from our back up pig.  We had several pigs that we raised that year.  Both my sister and I had raised a pig for the fair that year.  When raising a fair pig it is important to have a back-up pig in case something happens to your pig.  The pigs were super cute and fun to raise.  They were like giant oversized puppy dogs.  They would run out whenever they heard the sound of the hose.  They loved being squirted down and drinking form the hose.  They also loved when you scratched their back and belly.  They would lie down like a dog when you scratched their belly.  When you were inside the pin with them they would follow you around.  They were always looking for your attention.  Pigs were very personable and were like a pet when you raised them.

It was morning time and my mom was cooking up some bacon. 

Me: “Yummm… is that bacon?”

Mom: “Yes it is”

Me: “Oh look it’s the thick bacon.  Is this from the fair?”

Mom: “Ya it is”

Me: “Is this our back up pig from fair?”

Mom: “No, we traded with another family so we would not have to eat our own pig.”

Me: “Really? Why would we do that? I wanted to try out our pig.  They looked like they would be tasty.”

After living on the ranch for a few years I began to see animals as food.  The purpose we raise animals is for food and even if I get attached I know the ultimate purpose is to eat them and I am perfectly fine with eating animals that I raise.  For Christmas dinner we ate my steer named Copper.  I fed, walked, and groomed Copper for nine months.  When I sold him he was tame and mellow, just like a pet.  I had spent hours working with him and in the end I didn’t think twice about eating him.  He was a mighty tasty steer too.

Family Drama

I got a phone call from my mom the other day telling me her dad was up visiting.  Knowing my grandpa I was shocked.  She told him that there was something he needed to talk to her about in person and it could not be done over the phone.  I was thinking to myself as she was telling me what could this possibly be.  I knew he had some doctors appointments about a week earlier and wondered if maybe he had some health issues.  The only problem was with my grandpa everything was a life or death situation so you never know if it is something serious or just a cold.  My mom continued on to tell me that she had a long lost half sister.  She in 49 years old and live in Austrailia.  Apparently way back before my grandparents moved to the United States my grandpa had an affair.  Apparently the lady was also married so she just raised it with her husband.  She never told my grandpa becasue he had already immigrated to the U.S.  Apparently when the girl was about 15 she had a fight with her mom and her mother told her that her dad wasn't really her dad and threw out my grandpa's name.  I don't know how long she has been searching for my grandpa but she just found him a few weeks ago.  He did a DNA test to find out that the probability she is his daughter is 99.99%.  I guess it's a good thing my grandparents got divorced a long time ago.

The Destruction of my First Car

The first car that was ever really mine was an old 1991 Ford Explorer.  My dad bought it from the guy who rented our trailer from us.  When he bought it the car didn't run.  He had some guys rebuild the transmission and then I was off.  The car was predented so know one really knew if I hit anything.  I never really cared for the car until it was gone.

It was on a Sunday morning following our family Christmas party.  My aunt and uncle from LA had decided to stay an extra day and go to church.  They had never stayed before so no one else even got ready for church.  My little sister, Nicole, decided after my aunt and uncle had already left with their kids that she also wanted to go to church.  She demanded that someone take her home but no one in my family wanted to leave the guest house.  I finally said, "take my car Nicole."  I said this because she was always to afraid to drive being only 14.  This time she decided to take it.  It was a little foggy outside but it was no big deal.  She was driving down the road when she noticed she needed to turn on the lights.  It was when she was looking for the lights that her inexperience got the best of her.


If you would like the rest of the story here it is. I didn't have time to write it in class.

Back at the guest house people were coming and going.  It was the Sunday after our Christmas party which means homemade cinnimon rolls.  Everyone was chatting away and minding their own business.  No one had noticed that Nicole was gone.  It was not until my mom recieved an alarming phone call from Nicole that put everyone in a panic.  Nicole was on the phone screaming, "I am sorry, I didn't mean to, I am sorry!"  She kept saying it over and over again.  Her words almost unreconizable.  We couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing.  When my mom tried to talk to her she would not respond only repeating the same words.  That is when we all started to think.  Where was she?  No one really knowing where she had gone the thought suddenly crossed my mind.  My car.  I ran outside to look and it was gone.  I ran back into the house and told my parents.  In a panic they ran outside.  My other aunt and uncle were pulling in when my mom jumped in their car and told them to drive towards my house.  My dad then got in my aunt Catherines car.  She had a hybrid car with a push start.  My dad panicing over the condition of my sister couldn't figure out how to start the car.  My aunt helped him out then he zoomed off.  I stayed back at the house with the rest of my family.  My sister tended to over react so we figured she was just on the side of the road and needed to get pulled out of the ditch.  About 5 minutes later we recieved a phone call about what happened.  She had rolled my car.  Apparently my mom found my sister walking down the road close to where she had rolled the car.  She had climbed out of the car from the back windshield.  I arrived shortly after to see the state of my car. 

It had been totalled.  The car was tipped up on its side and facing the opposite direction of which it had been moving.  All the widows were either cracked or completly shattered.  All the contents of my car were spilled out the back.  There was no bring back the car but my sister was okay.  She was shaken up and a little bruised but nothing more.  My sister was afraid to talk to me for a while.  She was afraid that I was going to be mad at her for destroying my first car.  But after all it was just a car.

Research Paper draft

Thesis:

Although many farmers and ranchers consistently take care of and treat their livestock with care and concern, the media likes to take the few rare cases of animal abuse and portray the entire cattle industry as being one large factory farm that abuses and mistreats cattle with no remorse.

Abuse Cases in the Media

In 2008, United States largest beef recalls occurred.  When people hear about a recall, especially on food, everyone panics because it typically means the food is unsafe or someone got sick from eating it.  The beef recall was recalling 143 pounds of beef from across the nation.  Most of the beef being recalled was sold for school lunch programs.  The largest U.S. beef recall was not because the beef made anyone sick, but was because the cattle were abused in the harvesting process.  According to the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, "It is extremely unlikely that these animals were at risk for [mad cow disease] because of multiple safeguards," he said in a statement. "However, this action is necessary because plants violated...USDA regulations"(US News).  The company responsible was Westland/ Hallmark.  They had a large harvesting operation that involved the processing of many old dairy cows.  In the process of harvesting the cattle a worker for the Humane Society caught on tape footage of workers at the facility picking up downer cows with fork lifts and chains to force them through the harvesting plant.  The video of the animal abuse went viral.  Media stations everywhere were playing the footage of a downer cow being forcefully moved.  The media went on to show the acts of cruelty across the nation making it look like every cattle processing facility ran in an inhumane manner.  The media wants America to think that all animals used for human consumption are abused, ”The abuse of non-ambulatory cattle at a California slaughterhouse has renewed calls for a ban on the slaughter of such animals, and newly released government records show such mishandling in past years was more than a rare occurrence”(USA Today).  As the media spreads the words across America that, “mishandling in the past years was more than a rare occurrence,” people start to wonder how their food gets to their dinner plate.  People do not like to hear that their nice, juicy hamburger was once a cow that was beaten and mishandled simply so the processing facility could make more money.  That makes everyone in the beef industry look bad when that is not truly the case. 

How Cattle Effect the Environment

In November of 2006 the United Nations came out with a report called the “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”  This report was about the raising of livestock’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.  In this report it states that the raising of animals for consumption contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than all cars; “When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2” (UN News Centre).  This claim states that raising animals for consumption is the most dangerous and harmful things, we as humans do, for our environment.  This report specifically targeted the beef industry as being the main culprit for most of these emissions, “And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain” (UN News Centre).  They don’t specifically say cattle in this statement but cattle and sheep both have ruminant systems.