Today is the last day of Fall break. Madeleine has had the entire week off from school making this a week filled with the sweet sound of her chatter. Actually, it has been a week filled with a lot of sisterly squabbles, whining, and tantrums, but I have digressed. On Monday we packed up my mom's compact car and drove to Spencer, NE to visit her best friend,Cherry Hammon (emphasis on compact car. I really prefer having more space between my children and I on road trips). Cherry (Mrs. Hammon is how I still refer to her to this day) is a retired school teacher who has practically been a part of our family since I was in diapers. Although she was born and raised in NE, she and her husband settled in San Antonio where my family and I would eventually meet them and their daughters. Some 40 years later, Mr. and Mrs. Hammon moved back to Spencer, NE and we finally made it up there to visit them.
Spencer is a very small farming community near the border of South Dakota. I think it is safe to say that many of the people who live there earn a living by farming. That fact became shockingly clear to me on this trip and I will elaborate more later.
Shortly after our arrival Mrs. Hammon took us on a tour of the town. She rambled off a list of places she wanted to show us, but one in particular made my stomach do flips. Her son-in-law is a butcher and owns a meat locker. She had plans to take us there so we could say hi to him. However, that isn't exactly how she phrased it. With excitement in her voice she told my girls that we were going to go see a butchered cow!!! Now, I do enjoy a good hamburger, but I try very hard not to think about where it comes from. When I see trailers hauling cows it nearly brings me to tears thinking about where they are headed. My girls don't know what butchered means. All they heard was cow.
Our first stop on the Spencer tour was an assisted living home. Mrs. Hammon has a 98-year-old friend that she visits daily. Her name is Martha and we were privileged to meet her and several other women. I think it was a neat experience for my girls, and I could tell it brightened the day of the elderly people to see Madeleine and Audrey. However, I was distracted the entire time. My mind was on butchered cows.
After saying good-bye to Mrs. Hammon's friend, we piled into the car and headed to the meat locker. Madeleine, who loves animals and has such compassion for them, said with a smile on her face, "I can't wait to see a cow!" I had to delicately and quickly explain to her that the cow we were going to see would not be alive. I gave her the "circle of life" story while she stared at me with eyes the size of saucers.
When we got there Madeleine and I stayed near the entrance, while Audrey pranced in like it was nothing. As it turned out, Mrs. Hammon's son-in-law had stepped out momentarily and was not even there. His mother was, however, and she could not understand why I did not want to walk toward the back to see where they had the meat hanging. My mom and Mrs. Hammon viewed it and because they did Audrey wanted to as well. She is very curious and wants to do what everyone else is doing. Shortly thereafter Madeleine's curiosity got the better of her and she took a quick peek. After she did she proclaimed that she is never going to eat meat again.
After the horror of seeing where cows go from being beautiful creatures (with big brown eyes, pink noses, and floppy ears) to hamburger patties, we drove across the border into South Dakota to see where Mrs. Hammon and her family go camping. On the drive both of my girls doodled in notebooks that Mrs. Hammon had given them earlier. Madeleine wrote a journal entry about her day while Audrey drew a picture. It had been quiet until all of a sudden when Audrey piped up and said, "Look! I drew a picture of mooshu the dead cow"!
I couldn't believe it! She drew it with so much accuracy, all the way down to the hook the meat was hanging from. Other than her classic smiley faces with arms and legs coming out of a head, this is her first real drawing. She had obviously been processing what she had just seen and that picture was her interpretation.
The rest of our trip was not quite as gory. Just before eating beef noodle for dinner, we went to Mrs Hammon's church to help a group of ladies make a couple of quilts that will be donated to children in need of a blanket. If I remember correctly over 500 quilts have been made by these ladies over the years.
Mrs. Hammon and my mom tied square knots while the girls looked on.
Audrey decided to give it a try.
This is Mrs. Hammon's backyard.
It backs up to a farm, so she can see cows when they come to their water trough for a drink. Here is Madeleine watching a cow drink water from the warmth of Mrs. Hammon's sun room.
Here is the cow she was looking at. They really are beautiful creatures.
This white bench was just begging to have my girls sit on it for a picture.
So, our trip to Spencer ended up being so much more than an opportunity to visit with good friends. It also proved to be a valuable learning experience. I have never felt like such a city slicker. My girls learned first hand the circle of life and where their food really comes from. I learned that I might be better off becoming a vegetarian.
1 comment:
The matter of factness in her tone when she showed us the picture had drawn made it even funnier. Like it was every day occurance to see 8 or 9 whole butchered cows
Post a Comment