I don’t take killing lightly… people, animals… It’s just not something you do without a good reason.

When you’re a farmer, of course, you sometimes kill animals for food. Sometimes we send them out to be “processed” by someone else. It seems like a reasonable thing to do, killing to eat.

But now I have killed for less.

I have killed for silence.

This morning there were two roosters on the farm making the same racket they’ve been making since they were each just a few months old. Constant. Incessant. Ear-piercing. I should have recorded it for posterity. For my own defense, not that I feel I need one. All day long, “cock-a-doodle-doo” was pretty much all you’d hear at our place… and for quite some distance around, I’m sure.

It was the kind of thing they write songs about, and I have my own

Oh the hens make a pleasant little cluck-cluck-cluck
as they go about their day on the farm…

The hens say bock and the roosters answer back…
with a cock-a-doodle-fuckin’-doodle-doo!

Oh sure, I sing it to the neighborhood kids. They get a big kick out of it.

Well now they’re gone. Returned to the wild, to the food chain.

So now I have killed for less. But don’t worry about me. I’ll have no problem sleeping at night. And now, I’ll be able to sleep during the day, too.