Do you eat to live, or live to eat?

Sorry for the lull is posts again. I had a hectic but positive week, having found myself moved to a one-street agricultural town to do an internship with Dept of Agriculture. It's beautiful out here, with soft green hills and peaceful grazing sheep, cattle and horses. What an opportunity to study these docile creatures. I've gone to watch the sheep twice and they don't do much really. They eat and walk, sometimes at the same time. I was trying to see if I could tell the huge round balls apart, I thought I noticed some distinguishing features but I'm not sure. They did notice me and a bright one or two would stare. So these might not be the brightest creatures but that doesn't mean they don't experience contentment and distress, or that they don't have the potential to revert to their former smarter and wilder selves (i.e. before domestication).

Being out here and after reading a photographic book: "Can We Feed Ourselves" which focuses on the billions of poor in the East, it reminds me that really, life is all about eating. For many people, their whole lives revolve around this issue. So the question of agriculture and livestock is an important one. For many people the manure, animalpower and meat from animals is an important part of life and maintains sustainability. I have come to the conclusion that animal farming can be good, provided that animals are able graze/live under pleasant conditions and that they are used for manure, dairy and eggs, not meat and leather! I think most farm animals would not object to the former system.

Once I get my digital camera out here, I'll take some pretty pictures for my next blog. See you then.