To prove the Front Porch Republic isn't all academic discussions of too much length and intensity for the casual reader, check out Animals Were Definitely Harmed in the Production of this Story, explaining why, unlike modern movies, farm life entails "‘the harming of animals of every shape and in every fashion."
The story is less morbid than amusing, and rings true to life outside of Hollywood. Here are a few excerpts to tempt you.Maria and the girls had met a couple driving an old Amish buggy and wearing an odd mixture of Amish and Scottish garb (the broad brimmed hat, no buttons on the shirt, the kilt, the tartan, the whole nine yards).
Fortunately, even a dead horse’s head is extraordinarily hard to separate from its body (it does happen in the Godfather, but they don’t show how it’s done and it’s a movie after all)....
The whole area seemed to be populated by folks with a special appreciation for Jack Russell terriers, and these dogs were fairly efficient cat murderers, but they also proved to be a special delicacy for the local coyote population who, I can only suppose, used them as a solid kind of aperitif. I never saw a coyote, but we often heard them. Our neighbors lost not only Jack Russells but small calves to them as well. They never bothered our chickens, which must have been a matter of luck more than skill, because our beagle/basset hound would have proven to be merely a meatier version of the Jack Russell for the coyotes, and our golden retriever would have welcomed their company.
We kept the chickens for their eggs, so we never actually killed any of them ourselves. On occasion, however, the chickens were happy to kill each other. They loved the scent or taste of blood and pecked each other mercilessly, especially after drawing blood. My wife discovered that allowing the chickens to roam where they desired cured them, for the most part, of their chickocidal tendencies. Free range chickens are healthier not merely because they are "born free, free as the wind blows," but because they are no longer tempted to cannibalize their oh-so-close neighbors.
[I]t turns out that baby birds, like all other animals, sometimes go to sleep, and, that when they go to sleep, they can appear to be deceased, at least when inspected by greenhorns like me.
