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José Miranda drained the meat, and Ayla held a hen and witnessed the whole process. Photo by Paula Meyer.

Ayla's mother, Erin Cuseo, was a loyal farmer who taught her children the wonderful but sometimes sad reality of food production. Photo by Paula Meyer.

Ella woke up and knew that today they were going to slaughter a Brown Boy, a traditional pig on the farm. She is not a typical modern kid. She has football practice, piano lessons and Labrador. She is very independent and has been able to defend herself. And she doesn't eat meat now. "I really don't like the taste of it," she said. "Or its texture, really." "What about bacon?" I asked. "Oh, I used to have it, but not much now," she replied. Before she was two and a half years old, Ella was free-range in what her father Mike called "a verdant forest on the bank of the river" in the northwest. She spent her days with her mother, Irene, who gardened all day, growing vegetables, fruits and herbs. Back in Roaring Fork Valley, my mother became famous as a small business farmer, and her business expanded to laying hens and traditional pigs. Erin produces value-added agricultural products, dried and canned products. She uses buffalo milk from her partner José to make bar shampoo, dish soap (without plastic containers) and shower gel. José makes cheese, yogurt and delicious ice cream. They harvest and thresh themselves. Natural mayflies fill their homes-skulls, unusual autumn shells, wings, bundles of herbs, pickled winter melons. This quality of life extends to the Brown boy, his mother and siblings. For most of the summer, pigs feed on invasive thistles and prepare a new vegetable plot. The farm compost filled their stomachs. Throughout the summer and autumn, friends brought crop remains and fruit trees to harvest. Brown boy has fresh water, used grain, and a safe haven. Currently, the pigs are moving around a historic hut, where clover, willow trees, wild roses and an ancient apricot tree are planted to provide a windbreak for the winter. The fragrance from their enclosures is fresh and sweet; Carbondale's leaves and fall trim are composted with vegetarian pig manure. When Irene and Jose gathered the Brown Boys, Ella stood on the roof of their shelter. Her face was solemn, absorbing today's task. The gray day and the rotten snow matched her temperament, but she understood. She jumped down to pick up her favorite chick and hugged her in her arms like a doll. I followed her, we were bathed in the fertile warmth of the greenhouse. "I treat the chicken as my child," she said, absently picking arugula, mizuna, and kale, and feeding her bird by hand. Ella continues to give a lengthy and complicated description of the science fiction chapter book she wrote on the spiral notebook, which is the world she has created herself. She was ten years old, weird, and I was fascinated. In a party, Ayla will be the one where the butterfly landed. Before others even noticed its existence, the man with the snake in his hand. She is the one who follows the frogs and captures them. She first saw the blue heron, recognized the call of the red-tailed eagle, and recognized a bird of prey. Obsessed with dinosaurs, she started writing stories at the age of four. Ella accurately explained her story on the draft paper nailed to the pamphlet and used their Latin name. "I like animals. I like to imagine what it would be like to be a bird. Or a fox or a fish. Live, watch and eat like them," she said in a smaller voice. Did she hear how different she was? "They don't use plates for anything," she added afterwards. Ayla refers to "places", not through structures or roads, but through eagle nests, or places where she has seen scorpions, caught salamanders, or personally fed gray jays. "I fed a trumpeter swan yesterday!" Her words were rushing with excitement, tumbling to each other. "I found some rose hips. Then this plant with all these dried seeds on it. I stripped them off! Put them in my hands and sprinkled them on the water. They all floated. You know How do they eat?" She speculated, "They just stroked the water with their beaks and ate everything on it!" The hen held her arms, and Ella walked to a chicken outside, monologues about mites, frostbite, Comb skin and hen breeds. She sounds like an undergraduate in biology. "We will get 20 new chicks at some point, and I will get a new chick. She will become the Golden Phoenix," she emphasized. "The golden phoenix chicken is so cute," she screamed, squeezing extra on the hen, jumping quickly in her magenta maroon, like a child again. Ella is eager to keep a pet. Irene and Jose each have a dog. Ella grew up with buffaloes, chickens, pigs, and the rescued creatures. But she wants someone to take care of herself. She is saving money to buy a falcon license and a kestrel. Do her research and prepare. She would train her predators with "rats, voles, lizards, whatever they can catch", she said with relish. We are on the other side of the farm, away from the pig slaughterhouse. The pistol shooting was sudden and intense, showing respect, but it was irrevocable. Each of us was immersed in our own emotions, watching life struggle from our backs and limbs. This was Ella’s first massacre, and she came because of curiosity. She has witnessed all the pigs in the house grow out of piglets, holding, feeding and sniffing them. Our stroll allowed her to handle all this. "It's a bit sad," Ella said at last. "Like store-bought chicken? I don't think it makes sense to kill a chicken just to eat it. You should make the chicken alive." "What about when your kestrel takes its life?" I asked softly. "You will be directly involved. What will it look like to you?" Ella was quiet. "Um... uh." She thought too much. Because of her child’s innocence, and compared to the smart adults she often showed, Ella finally announced, “I really don’t know.” When asked about his daughter’s supernatural affinity, Mike compared the earliest Earth discovery and direct experience are attributed to them. Natural phenomena are now the lens through which she explains and exists in the world. Few children are so lucky. Brown boy has always been a short man. He is now hanging on the hocks, blood soaking in the basin below and in the snow where he was shot. this is the truth. Ella is learning the source of food. Contrary to what one might expect of blood and gore, identifiable short ribs and parts of bacon can reveal internal organs. This clean and complex combination is one of the contrasts: the glowing lung tissue; the dense chestnut liver; the undulations of the white webbed intestines are obscured by the waste grains of Capital Creek Brewery and the green tomatoes in the fall. These organs alone are internal organs or delicacies; in short, they are the magical system of vitality. Jose and his friends work quietly and easily: cut here, cut there. José's voice occasionally rises, expressing his love for his two-year-old son Wekta, who, like Ayla, staggers through these cycles and seasons. Jose manages to cut off the anus and Brown Boy's still-filled bladder from the pelvic cavity, directing the contents into the pelvis. Ella exchanged her chicken for her mother's hug and orange slices. She shared with Wekta, tweeting back and forth a few feet from the brown boy and winter meat. She grew up in the forest by the river. Irene Cuccio hugs her daughter. Photo by Paula Meyer.

Irene Cuccio hugs her daughter. Photo by Paula Meyer.

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