One week from today, I , JMF Stone, will begin a job with Over The Hill Farm in Benson, Vermont. The name, Over the Hill, seems to foreshadow my mid-life-crisis yet to come, but for now, I am optimistic about the job as my last week of freedom ekes by insignificantly.

To call Over the Hill a farm is a bit misleading, as the designation farm conjures an image of beans laying in a row and tomatoes climbing over a trellis. Aside from a possible family patch, there is nothing resembling a garden on this farm. Over the Hill Farm specializes in raising meat. From the pasture to the plate, pigs and cattle are raised on the verdant hills of this small farm. What makes this operation unique is the slaughter house and meat cutting room which lay next to the barn. Most of the “farm’s” work isn’t with their own animals and fields, but with animals raised by other farmers, who need their crop prepared for market.

The next year of my life will be spent learning this preparation. My first week or so will be spent in the ominously named Killing Floor. The only animal that I have consciously killed was a bird, which left a ten-year-old me in tears for the afternoon. I suppose I’ve toughened up a little bit in the past eleven years, though I know that killing a cow and/or pig is going to be a really intense experience for me.

Over the next year, I hope to share my experiences with becoming a butcher through the Fluid Imagination Blog. Perhaps someday these digital transcripts will be able to pinpoint the conception of my insanity. Lets hope I don’t go Dahmer!