art and reality

I popped down to the farm yesterday to see the originals of the artwork Veronica had painted for the cow calendar. They’re striking, and it’s incredible how statesmanlike the older cows look. The twin Kates are the old girls, the matriarchs of the Longleys herd. Their individual portraits really do reveal this, incredible. I’ll post them up here as soon as I can.

I popped into the farm kitchen after the art visit for an unexpected emotional contrast. The big table was stacked with big see-thru sacks full of meat. The cow from whence it came was a free martin; that is a female cow born as a twin to a bull calf and so always infertile. She could never join the milking herd so was raised as beef and at two years of age was sent to the abbatoir. The carcass was then hung for 21 days and today she came back, butchered and sitting in a dozen bags. Somehow gruesome yet I would a thousand times over rather see this, be aware of it, see the cycle of life, know the animals history rather than buy a prepackaged anonymous cut on a supermarket shelf.

Wagons roll…

Every film is a bit of a journey, hopefully for the filmmaker as well as the audience. That’s certainly going to be the case with “the moo-man”. I’m making this film because I find Steve’s farm and his cows fascinating. He manages to buck so many trends, many of which I’ve always seen as very negative aspects of modern farming.

Okay, I better come clean right at the start. I’ve been a veggie for 25 years. That’s enough time for ‘no meat’ to be completely natural but also to take for granted some of my presumptions about the business of meat and animals. There is an unfortunate inverse relationship between the bottom line and animal welfare, and the animals are usually the losers. It’s something I always felt uncomfortable about, so avoided mammal meat for all them years. I’m not squeamish though, I’ve never had a problem with popping a fish on the head, gutting and eating it. In fact I’m very grateful to the many trouts who’ve providing me with lovely meals.

Thing is when I first visited Steve’s dairy farm back in February, many of my meat presumptions were turned on their head. I’m no spring chicken, I know that meat and milk have an umbilical connection. I’m uncomfortable with this, I can’t pretend that drinking milk is not an essential aspect of the economics of meat. However, the revelation to meet a farmer who gave me enough confidence to make me re-consider a 25 year flesh fast and question my ‘belief’. This was a big deal but I also thought that if it rocks my ideology so strongly, then somewhere in there, are probably the bones of a good film and an excellent story, a journey even.

So…I’ve spent a good deal of the summer and autumn down on the farm, researching, filming tests and trying to appreciate some of the complexities of a small dairy farm.

It’s now December, the days are short and the camera doesn’t really like the low light levels. But the farm is  full of interesting stories, so I’ll say ‘cameras roll’ and let the journey begin…

Legalise raw milk?