Have you ever wondered what happens to cattle, sheep and other ranch animals when they die? I don't mean their immortal soul, if indeed animals have one...that discussion is much deeper than I'm going here. I mean their bodies. Most people who have never spent a lot of time on a working ranch have no idea what is done with the corpses of animals who die on the premises. On the cattle ranch that I grew up on in eastern Oregon, and on all the ranches that I've been on, there is a boneyard. The boneyard is simply a place where the corpses of animals are taken, then left to rot. Some ranches have a huge hole excavated, some don't. Boneyards smell strongly of death, although not as bad as you would imagine. In the chill winters of eastern Oregon, the bodies freeze, and in the arid summers they almost mummify with little odor.
I'm sure some people are thoroughly grossed out and apalled by this node, and find it in very poor taste. I'm sure many people really don't want to know about boneyards and manure piles and other nasty little secrets of the beef industry. And that brings me to the point that I want to make. Having grown up on a cattle ranch, I think differently than many people who grew up in urban environments. Ranchers tend to have an acceptance, an understanding of death and decay as part of the cycle of life. I cherish this inheritance, and wish I could pass it on to my children. I seem to have a different attitude about life, and some of it's less pleasant aspects, than many of my friends. Call it down to earth, call it backwoods, call it what you want...it's different and I like it. And that attitude is disappearing. Fewer children are being raised on ranches and farms as fewer families are being able to make it on family run farms. Mechanization and specialization have turned raising cattle into an assembly line rather than a lifestyle. And fewer people have experienced a boneyard. I find that sad.