Starting Again and Finding my Bacon

It is with much trepidation and cliché that I embark on the meager task of starting my very own blog.  I have abstained with great resolve and have managed, at least until now, to keep locked up my desire to spew out my thoughts to the world, my family, my lack of friends.  My story is not much different than any other, raised in a small town, left that town to pursue my lot in life, found that I do not want what I have and thus, eking out the modest steps of starting again.  So, this is a tiny step in what I hope is the right direction.  This is my experiment to see if I can track my moving point of interest and physical position.

I am in the process of locating and enjoying my bacon.  I like bacon, though I do not agree with the system by which the majority of the country obtains its bacon.  I purchase my bacon from a local farmers market.  I understand that my bacon comes from a small farm and is raised by the man I buy it from.  His moral dilemma of slaughtering a living thing trickles down to me as I place the thick slices of meat over my camp fire.  Gleaning the information that I can in the limited contact I have had with farmers it is not so much a dilemma.  More, they describe a way of life that has always been.  They describe the need to take the resources they have access to and provide for their families and for their way of life.

"It's a pig.  Look at their social structure, they eat shit... And they don't wait in line to do it."  It seems to be a cycle of activity that the human race has understood since our beginning. Life, death, consumption, death, rinse and repeat.

Though I do not understand the techniques employed to butcher a pig, I have to say I do enjoy the outcome.  Maybe I would feel different if I was the one doing the butchering.  Maybe not.  But, I feel I need to know.  I would like to understand all the parts in the process of how my bacon arrives at my plate.  What are the truly necessary steps that have to be taken to produce this outcome?  Where can I simplify the process and how can I diminish the impact my choice in food has on the ecologic economy?  As of now, I don't want to give up on bacon, but I would like to streamline the process.

To those ends or means, I have started to educate myself on the art of archery.  Just reading for now and making sure that I understand all the parts before I try to fit them together.  I find myself reading hunting magazines, and studying the anatomy of deer and of wild pigs.  I'd like to know what I'm doing before I have any blood on my hands.  I wouldn't want to make the moose mistake made by Chris McCandless.  But like Chris, I want to know and do for myself.