I have to admit that my first reaction upon seeing this entry was to request a trigger warning at the top. I do eat meat and I’m not opposed to hunting but I have issues about blood and skin from a past event in my life.

However, once I got over the initial anxiety attack (which was thankfully pretty mild), I realize that my mental health triggers are not as important as the messages you’re trying to convey here about the realities of hunting and where our food comes from. People SHOULD react strongly to these images, whether it’s in a positive way or a negative way. I can’t really thank you for posting this but I do admire you for tackling such a provocative topic.

(Plus, admit it, you’re kind of gleefully excited about the potential wankstorm, right?)

To the people getting offended by this post, please go do a Youtube search for “cow slaughter”, or if you’re REALLY brave, “kosher slaughter”. Seeing cows herded one by one into a machine that slits their throats and the resulting waterfall of gore will probably make you rethink your words.

Linda, good job. As a former farm kid and daughter/family to assorted hunters, bravo on you for not only calling people on their views for sustainability, but making them realize that what they’re looking for ain’t pretty. It’s just NOT. There is no way it can be MADE pretty.

And to the person above who posted about “things not having to die” because they’re a vegetarian, I hope you figured in all the animals that die in threshing machines and other farm equipment every year when crops are harvested. Y’know- birds, snakes, mice, rabbits, etc. Oh, and the deer and other animals that are routinely shot by commercial farms for eating crops.

You enjoy that meat, Linda. You enjoy the FUCK out of it!

One more thought for anyone offended by the hunting or the pictures: please take a moment to think about what was going to happen to this animal if it HADN’T been brought down (fairly quickly, it seems) by a hunter.

Hint: the answer is NOT “it would have dropped dead at the height of its powers, and been buried by the respectful herd.” No, the reality for most wild animals is quite a lot slower, and messier. Something was going to eat that elk eventually.

I”m not a hunter myself, but it’s always nice to read about a well done hunt conducted with respect for the game.

What a rejoinder!

Like vegetables don’t scream when you rip them from the vine or tear their little roots from the soil?

This is a slightly snarky response to the milk factory that is cow torture (or you’d think so by reading the comments in THAT post). I love it actually, I was a bit skeeved by the pictures too, but point was made and BRAVO for putting this out there.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, KP.

great post! I don’t eat red meat but thanks for the reminder that my chicken/pork/fish doesn’t come “wrapped in plastic, styrofoam, and denial.” (TM sooboo, hilarious by the way). We all need to remember this. Bravo Linda!

Were you trying to start a discussion/make a point? Because I came to your blog thinking, “Wonder what’s happening at Sundry.” Saw this and thought, “Oh, JB went hunting. Neat.” And that was it. It wasn’t until I perused the comments that it even occurred to me that there might be an issue. I still don’t get it.

Quite frankly, I’m a little shocked there are so many “WOO! HIGH FIVE!” posts. I came into comments looking for a little morning drama and am a little sadface that there is none (so far, 58 comments in). But, I say, good on you. I couldn’t actually look at the pics because DUDE, I’m eating breakfast here, but you raise an excellent point about knowing where your food comes from.

I’m totally OK with hunting as long as you eat what you hunt. Good job JB and happy eating!

Silly question, but serious, are they really considered organic just because they are in the wild? If so then verrrrry cool. I’m not so sure the deer out here in Maryland and Virginia are all that organic with the crap in the water and earth here :( but I’m way certain it’s much better than what we get at the grocery store.

I think we’ll have some venison chili tonight. Yummm.

That totally makes me want to start hunting, actually. Yum.

Beautiful elk, surprising morning post. Got no problems with any of it. Rock on.

Graphic, yes. But even though we don’t hunt, I was raised on a small farm and I absolutely believe that people should know where their food comes from. Slaughter houses are far, far worse than the serene-until-the-last-moment-then-a-quick-end situation this elk faced.

I accept the way meat is produced, so I’m not a vegetarian; my mom doesn’t agree with it so she is one. But at least we both make our choices with our eyes open. I think this was a brave, if unexpected, post.

effing awesome!

Just last week I sent my husband a blog entry about farm butchering and said, “This why I know I’ll always be a vegetarian. I could never stomach doing this or watching someone doing it, and to me that means I don’t deserve to eat the end product.”

Add another to your “good on you for posting this.” People should realize where their food comes from and have a little respect for the animals that fuel their bodies!

While I have a hard time killing anything myself (including spiders and cockroaches in my own house), I respect those who hunt and eat what they kill. It’s pretty ballsy to put processing pictures up, so good on you for that! I remember hiking in West Virginia, rounding a bend, and seeing a deer split from end to end hanging in a tree. Not growing up in a rural area, that sight was a new one for me, but it didn’t bother me TOO much, at least after the initial shock (to be clear, it was near a parking area and the hunters were close-by). It is, afterall, how we’ve gotten our food for millenia….

Love, love, LOVE that you posted this. I grew up in a family of hunters and married one (all of whom were out doing their thing this weekend as it was Opening Weekend in Wisconsin)so this is all very “normal” to me but it was an awesome reminder as to WHY they do this and WHY I’m always waiting for the call to hear our freezer will be full for another year.

Like I said on Twitter – Brava. Everyone should know what happens for food to get to our plate. I’m super impressed that JB and his family do so much processing in the field. I know a lot of hunters just take the felled game to a processor.

Also – nice elk, JB!

Erm…yay?

I have zero problem with hunting for food. Happy to see your family will be eating well. Also, Happy Thanksgiving :)

Let’s all remember the untapped potential of our opposing thumbs. If we don’t like something, we can click away and come back tomorrow. Does every post on your favorite blogs float your boat? No, of course not. Click it away! Scroll down! So many options. Personally, I click away from every sad pet post. Just my button, not everyone else’s.

Balls? You have’em! I knew people were going to throw shit at you the second the page loaded. I can’t get my mind around how this post and/or the pictures brings some people to tears. Really? Really? Buck up! Pun intended!

I have no problem with hunting if you intend on eating what you kill. I don’t hunt because I don’t have the stomach for it, but I’ve fished before, and thanks to my squeamish husband, I get to be the fish cleaner, so I’m not all wuss. We have friends who hunt and I always enjoy getting some of their surplus. I get the haters, and I get it if vegetarians want to be upset about this, but the way I see it, this animal got to live as naturally as it gets and lived a great life, up until it’s final moments. I can’t say that for the vast majority of the meat one might buy out there. You know?

great post! I come from a family of hunters and am married to a hunter. My grandparents ran a small meat processing shop so I’ve been around and processed a lot of meat. I also agree that it’s great for people to see where their meat comes from. I’m still waiting for my husband to bring home our deer for the year.

Heee! You get the best trolls Linda! Love you!!

That looks awesome!! Is there any special way of cooking elk or other game meat or is it just like cooking anything else?

Ohhh, ew.

Not because it’s hunted, or meat, or whatever else. But because my first trimester pregnant self hates meat right now, and I did a slight regurg at the sight. Normally I’d have been all “YUM!”, but oh, the hormones and meat yuck in my body right now.

I love you for posting this. Congratulations to JB for getting his elk!

Wow! Important reminder for all of us meat-eaters where our food comes from (I suppose I really mean to say “should come from”). It doesn’t grow in serving size packages in the grocery store. Yes, I am squeamish and prefer to distance myself from where meat really comes from, but I know I shouldn’t ignore the truth. And I really need to eat more vegetables.

Just like every house I remember in Wisconsin in November, except there it’s deer. Blech.

Cute kids, scrapbooking, and a slaughtered elk all in one blog. As it should be. I agree with most of the people commenting here: If you eat meat you better be willing to see where it comes from and how it is processed. Seeing photos of meat processed this way is about a hundred times easier to look at than what a typical animal goes through on the way to the supermarket shelf. If you don’t like it there’s always Quorn crumbles.

Yeah, I’ve long said that post-apocalypse I’m going to have to go semi-vegetarian and hope for the best meeting my protein needs with eggs and beans and any fish my husband can catch. I am a total woose (wose?) and couldn’t handle hunting. Not that I mind the eating part…

Go, Sundry!!

Also, I’m scrubbing my eyes with a Brillo pad. Bright side: I’m much more awake than I was five minutes ago!

@Heather;
“I can’t get my mind around how this post and/or the pictures brings some people to tears. Really? Really? Buck up!”

I can’t get over how insensitive you are. Obviously there are still people in the world who aren’t as de-sensitized to death as you are. Get over your “macho” self. Why not post something productive, expressing your acceptance or agreeance over hunting.

What an excellent post, I agree that people need to be more aware of where their food comes from. If I could stock my freezer with wild game & home grown meat, I’d definitely do it. It tastes much cleaner & I know where it’s coming from. We don’t hunt, but have friends that do & are always happy to take the surplus, and I was raised in a family that raised our own chickens, pigs & goats, and knew from childhood where the best meat comes from!

I live in Central PA where many many people hunt, including my husband. He was just in Nebraska and shot a whitetail and when we were eating it the other nite, we discussed the difference in taste from a Pennsylvania deer.

I grew up on a farm where we slaughtered pigs, cows and chickens. Last spring we bought 1/3 of a cow from a friend of ours who has a farm.

I often feel like hunters are looked upon as cruel and redneckish but I don’t think my husband, who is working on his Phd in Fisheries Science aka a biologist, who practices shooting his bow for at least 6 months before shooting something so that he won’t take an inhumane shot is cruel. We eat meat from the store as well, because sometimes hot dogs are tasty.

I can appreciate the vegetarians perspective but sometimes I wish the meat eaters perspective was appreciated a little more when they are shooting their own dinner.

You think you’re really cool and edgy for this, but I think you’re bordering on inappropriate. I come here (maybe *used to* come here) because I like your writing style and humor. But you fail to grasp that your audience may not want to see images of slaughtered animals. I respect your right to hunt, as deplorable as I find the practice, but don’t make me look at pictures of it without some warning. I know that my comment is just fueling your fire – that you think you’re going to start some debate and then you can sit back and feel smug because you think you’re right, but really all you’re doing is alienating readers. Good luck, and good bye.

I agree with Sarah C.
Between this horrendous post and the sell-out visit to the dairy farms a few weeks ago, you have 100% lost me as a reader. I just unsubscribed and am never coming back.

Awesome. Post. Yes, it’s “gross”, but so is the whole process of eating and being alive. It’s all very messy. I love the reminder, I absolutely learned something, and I am sitting here in sparkling awe at the skill of your husband and his team. What an elk! What a man! What a family! Vegetarians are great but I like meat. Meat eaters are great, but they probably go a little overboard sometimes.
Things still die in a salad, threshers aside. That green lettuce leaf is still producing oxygen and basically alive while we’re chewing it. At least the elk is dead.
Hey if meat is not someone’s choice, more power to her. If the all veggie gig isn’t for someone, more power to her too. We all have our reasons. There’s plenty of room in the grocery store for all of us.

Do people hunt and sell the meat? I guess they must, but this could totally be the next big health/fitness thing. It’s like the final step beyond buying directly from a farm. You’d be selling meat directly from nature. Although there’s probably some licensing issue with that, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who are already paying a lot for organic/free-range meat that would easily make the switch to buying wild game. Pretty cool. And so good for the earth. Interesting post Linda!

Love. It. I’m not a “wild” meat eater as it is just too gamey for me, but my husband makes wonderful jerky out of it and I’ll eat that any day. He ever gets a deer, we’ll have it processed in 1″ strips. Hee. I kid. Rock on, Linda. I think the photos are fine. After the third one you should know more or less what’s coming next. Any one could stop if they choose. Kudos to JB.

Thank you, KP for pointing out the fact that many, MANY animals die in the process of producing “vegetarian” foods. And I’m not talking about things like insects, either: many, many birds, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, etc., die during harvest. And let’s not forget about the land and water use for all of the plant products we eat. In many places in the world, it is arguably a much more sustainable practice to raise herd animals like goats, which eat things like weeds and thistles and do not require much water, than to cultivate plants.

I would like to note, however, that the way most humans hunt is quite different than the way non-human predators hunt: we tend to go for the biggest, most healthy-looking animals (especially “trophy” hunters), while in the animal kingdom, predators are looking for animals that are easy to kill: sick, weak, or young. I read an article last year (can’t find the link now, darn it) that showed that human hunting patterns are changing the composition of animal herds: deer, elk, etc., on the whole, appear to be getting smaller, since they tend to be the ones left alive to procreate. What the possible consequences of this is anyone’s guess, of course, but I thought it was really interesting, in a “Law of Unintended Consequences” kind of way.

What. The. Fuck. I could have gone my entire life without seeing that. (I’m a meat eater… no judgments or anything, just BLECH.)

Nice post Sarah Palin. Where your food comes from is your business. Just like your blog is your business. But when I am used to checking your blog to see pictures of your beautiful boys, and instead I am emotionally assaulted (with no warning) by pictures of a butchered animal…well, shame on you.

Ya’ll, I get that some of us are vegetarians. I get that blood is gross. I get that we all need to make our own choices. And, I get that some people have sensitivities I can’t or don’t understand. I get that maybe a warning would’ve been nice for some people. I get all of it.

But seriously? Anxiety attacks? Emotional assault? From pictures of a dead animal? Where do you shop? The all-veggie store? To me, the plastic-wrapped, hormone bomb, vaguely rotten smelling meat wrapped up in the freezer section of the grocery store is much more frightening than this. As are the misogynistic messages against women on the covers of most major magazines in the checkout line, as well as the unmitigated and graphic violence and murder of human beings on primetime TV, even worse in movies.

These things offend me, but I don’t have anxiety attacks and claim emotional assault. Eat what you will. Read what you will. But let’s not get dramatic about it.

(For the record, in case you need more personal reasons to hate my comment than just the comment itself, I was raised on a dairy farm, haved hunted, killed, skinned and eaten animals wild and domestic, was a strict vegetarian for several years, and now lean as local, sustainable, whole foods-focused as possible, but sometime buy a styrofoam pork chop from the store or eat McDonald’s on a road trip. And I’m usually very politically correct, mild-mannered, conflict-avoidant, and empathetic. For some reason, some of these comments just tripped me out today. Sorry.)

Well, *I* think you’re really cool and edgy for this.

Bad ass, Linda.

Damn, girl, you have some balls posting that after the uproar about the Dairy Farm – AND that is EXACTLY why I keep reading your site, you are not afraid to say what you want. Nice Elk, by the way. My hubs just filled our freezer with deer. :)

Awesome.
I am all for hunting even though I love animals. I have a shotgun and I actually want to shoot a turkey one year for our Thanksgiving.
Great pictures showing the whole process too. Not like when I helped a friend skin a deer on the floor of his garage years ago. Not pretty.