And even outside of the cruelty - and it IS cruel, those animals know they're gonna die - it's killing us. The greenhouse gas emissions from producing beef are just too much.

I just can't bloody do it anymore.

But meat is REALLY TASTY and I CRAVE it when I haven't had it for a couple of weeks and I'm a big ol' belly-driven hypocrite

So I figure tomorrow either I kill a deer in one lights-out shot and eat it, or I stop eating meat, that's where I'm at.

I've never killed an animal that didn't absolutely need to die immediately - think birds and small mammals mauled by cats or hit by cars and dying slowly - and tomorrow I'm gonna go kill one, on purpose, so I can eat it.

Or maybe not, and just be vegetarian, but maybe with, like, clarity? Less regret and longing, knowing I gave it the full try?

I did a lot of target shooting with air rifles when I was younger, and I miss it. It's wonderful and peaceful to hold so utterly, perfectly still. I don't shoot firearms because a hideously loud explosion is a crappy way to end a period of Becoming A Stone calmness, but today I spent a long time calibrating a rifle because I'm not confident I could be humane with a bow.

And by humane I mean lights-out, dead before it hits the ground, never knew what hit it.

Because otherwise why bother, might as well go buy tortured animal chunks from costco and try not to think about it. No, the deal is if I think it'll take longer than a second to die, I don't shoot, and if it wanders off and gets no closer then, well, peanuts are a thing, I don't HAVE to eat animals.

My nana and granddad were farmers. It didn't come out until after my grandma died that she was vegetarian, because it would've been scandalous, how fucked is that?

No deer have come by yet, so I still have no idea whether I'm omnivore or vegetarian.

Reckon it's probably 50/50.

Pretty here though.

Those who know me well know that I think guns are a disease, and all firearms without exception should be banned, confiscated, melted down and recycled into free buttplugs for trans youth on YOUR tax dollar (and I'm maybe 10% joking) but here I am, and look what's been sitting in my lap since half six this morning.

Life takes you some bloody weird places sometimes

Quick break for lunch and now I'm back, me and a firearm sitting in a tree. It's sunnier now so it's pretty nice and chill up here.

My headcanon is that during lunch a hundred deer danced past in tuxedos and top hats doing knee kicks

I came out here wanting a yes-or-no answer to my whole "continuing to eat meat" question, I didn't really think of what'd happen if I never got the opportunity.

Carry on buying meat from the shops until next season I guess?

That wouldn't be a satisfying answer, I hope a deer shows up soon.

Well on the one hand I can report that this deer absolutely did not suffer.

Shot her in the back of her head. She fell over, twitched, rolled a little, that was that. I worried I'd done a bad shot all the way over to her, then I saw that no, that flopping was absolutely autonomic, I'm confident of that.

Ain't nobody gonna want to taxidermy that head, put it that way.

Anyway I feel alright with the shot. It was definitely what I intended, instant, no pain or fear or awareness of mortality.

I would've been happier if she was facing me? But that's probably selfish? Because then I wouldn't be dragging around this beautiful creature with this blown-off flapping-pieces nightmare face, that I had done? To the deer itself it made absolutely no difference anyway? I don't know? Is this why people aim for the heart and lungs?

Anyway we removed her organs and her fur and skin and propped open her ribcage to let everything cool and I get the meat on Tuesday and there'll be enough to last me and my wife and kid for MONTHS. All without the pain and torture and fear that my meat has traditionally involved, but, I mean, let's be fair, with a whole lot of unpleasant staring-into-the-gory-face-of-death that's... probably gonna stick with me for a while

And that might not be a bad thing