Let's Hear it for the Boys

The plight of male farm animals, including myself

For many days in a row, pretty much whenever the wind cuts fierce across our little sloping segment of farmland, I find an immature starling squatting in the weeds of our poultry yard, blown from its nest which was haphazardly tucked up in the rickety purlins of an old shade structure. It meekly waits, out of reach, in the cover of a sickly elm tree to be rescued by its mother. In the great thrashing and churning of life and death and decay that is springtime in northeast Missouri, I have become familiar with the constant sight of windfall baby birds, often dead, their thin pink skin writhing with ants. This particular fellow, the starling, is a bit more robust in health, despite the repeated trauma of being blown from its shoddily constructed nest. And while I sometimes tend towards callousness in this season of windfall and rapid trophic cycling, I always take time out of my chores to carefully replace the unfortunate birdy back up in the nest.

While European starlings are indeed abundant and not native to this place, I would challenge the authenticity of any man who could watch their vulnerable and awkward young struggle, gap-mouthed with hunger, pinny with undeveloped feathers, lying on the ground so close to safety, and do nothing. I have never denied that it’s a hard world we’re all born into, and despite advancements in health-care, education, and the availability of food (in some parts of the world), it doesn’t appear that this hard world is trending towards ease. A hard world demands tenderness, or some small modicum of care and decency, when we can afford it.

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A few days back, I had to euthanize Elton John— that is, our longtime stud billy goat, named Elton John. This day had been slated for winter originally, but like much of my work, was postponed repeatedly, partly due to circumstances, weather and schedules, but also maybe on account my distaste for the deed, if not his strong, pissy, musky odor and potential flavor. While I have used bold flavors and elaborate preparations to produce passable billy goat based cuisine, intact male goats are undeniably raunchy in their flavor profile— and surrounded as I am by wonderful food, I am embarrassed to admit that I think bucks are best suited to dog or coyote food.

And while Elton John (the billy goat and not the famed singer) was a particularly sweet and tame gentleman, by billy goat standards at least, he had shortcomings, both behavioral and genetic. He carried in his DNA some unfortunate traits which often lead to kids with mouth/jaw deformities and cryptorchidism. He was also a bit of a ringleader for bad behavior, knocking down electric fencing, leading the wethers he spends the summertime with on damaging walkabouts, even seeking out our doe goats for forbidden liaisons outside of our preferred breeding schedule. So when Elton jumped the fence and ended up at my house twice in 12 hours, it was obvious that we would have to crown a new king— the shy but powerfully framed Randy Joe.

After rounding up Elton and his fugitive comrades in the barn, it was time. We walked him around the side of the barn, allowed him a final taste of grain, and quickly, painlessly, and ignorantly, he fell to my gun. In a best case scenario, this is the plight of male farm animals. Years of eating, playing and occasional carnal delight, ended unknowingly with the pull of a trigger.

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I’ve been fixing up little bouquets for a while now. Sometimes for graves, but more often for some small bit of joyous decor. Our kitchen cooperative is back in formation for the growing season, and when trying to make our meager spring rations stretch for a dozen or so people, I’d like to think that a floral centerpiece really distracts from the grim reality of survival. I like to find what’s bold and pretty like big red poppies or creamy bracts of black locust blooms, and contrast them with the mundane— stalks of rye cover crops, pale green seedpods of peppergrass, even the subtle, fleshy leaves of chicory. I understand that flower arranging is an art, and one in which I have no formal training, but some of the skills it requires, like observation, attention, and a good sense of personal, geographic placement come naturally to me.

Whether or not I agree with it or go along with it, we live in a deeply gendered culture. Even in 2026, when the constructs of gender are being openly and often bravely challenged, provisioning a bouquet —as a man— would probably be derided in some groups. Despite the fact that to make a bouquet is to be a provider, at least of some amount of joy, there are internet personalities out there that would have you believe that the only overlap between masculinity and “home-making” is to make my own bed, which to be clear, I don’t ever do (I’m just going to sleep in it again, what’s the point?).

Men who do not create joy, or beauty, or care or comfort in a world that needs so much more, particularly when those necessities are unpaid, aren’t real providers. Like stud breeding stock on a farm, they consume feed and mate and potentially earn income, but ultimately they can be led around the back of the barn and replaced. I don’t mind that simple functionality in a buck or a boar or a rooster, but human beings that are unwilling to engage in important and undervalued work on account of their anatomical bits just don’t have what it takes to bring our species through into the next century.

Of course, I’ve been considering this lately because of how many male farm animals I’ve killed in my lifetime. But mostly, I’m considering these things as the father of a son. A few days ago, my boy, out of the blue, confided in me that he feels upset when he hears stereotypes about “white, American males”, because that’s what he is. I’ve always stressed to my kids that we can’t just accept generalizations about whole groups of people, because we’re all individuals, but I’ve spent enough time around my fellow white guys to know that sometimes there’s a reason stereotypes exist. I thought twice in the moment about what to tell my boy, and what I settled on was something to the effect that we do not need to comply with stereotypes, and if they’re particularly harmful, we should specifically do what we can to be different. I did my best to explain that he does have an unfair advantage in this life, but that he can choose to leverage that privilege to help the less fortunate. I think it was a fine thing to say, but there’s something deeper to his anxieties that has been bothering me these past few days. Boys do need a grounded understanding of the way this world works, with all its unfairness laid bare. But they also need a map to their goodness.

There’s a whole media industry that profits from making boys feel insecure. Perhaps this has always existed, I don’t know, but as it stands, a lot of deeply disturbing ideologies are being aimed at boys right now, and in turn, everyone else. I don’t need to even name all the idiots, bastards, and ghouls out there promoting harmful worldviews to young men, and these people already receive far more attention than they deserve. Outside of taking these “men” for a walk around the back of a barn somewhere, the most I can do in response is to make a nice bouquet, something that creates value outside of profit.

I don’t allow my son to watch “influencers” or anything like that, and have always strived to model a masculinity that rings true with my own conceptions of what it means to “provide”. I’ve also never purposely allowed my own conditioning to seep through. I cook, I clean, I listen, and I yield the floor to others. But my boy is ten years old, and eventually, he will befriend other boys who were not raised this way. And I don’t know what to do. And ceaselessly, the violent world we inhabit keeps churning.

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Another complex of storms sliced through our area overnight. This morning, the wet, leaf-laden branches of maples and mulberries were hanging low with rain, tossed by the wind. Twigs and nests laid in the mud, torn from the trees. Randy Joe and his emasculated pasture-mates strutted nimbly through the thickening grass, and our somewhat pushy or otherwise overly attentive tom turkey, Jellybean, boomed and danced and fanned his tail in anticipation of another hapless day ruling the roost. I hadn’t seen the little starling for these past few days and began to assume that the little bird had been doomed by the odds tacked against him, but as I hauled my bucket of feed out past the blooming locusts and across the threshold of the barnyard gate, a slightly less helpless, more full-feathered bird watched me from the wire a moment, before darting toward the storm-veiled horizon.

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