Awhile back there was a short article in The New York Times Magazine about a mobile slaughterhouse in the Hudson Valley — pictured above are two of its owner-operators, fourth-generation organic dairy farmers Bill and Jim Eklund. These types of operations — the very first of which went into operation on Lopez Island here in Washington State — allow small farmers to humanely and healthily raise and kill cattle at or near their own farms, rather than going through the grossly inorganic and costly process of dealing with the behemoth beef processing industry. In short, mobile slaughterhouses make "small farmer" a viable profession, and "100% local" a designation consumers can actually trust. Visit nytimes.com to read more about it in "A Movable Beast," Christine Muhlke's article on the Eklund's mobile slaughterhouse.
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While we're at it with the beef, let me take this opportunity to wholeheartedly recommend a new butcher in our neighborhood, Rain Shadow Meats.It feels like a major luxury to have such a great butcher in our neighborhood. Read an interview with founder Russ Flint at The Stranger and visit Rain Shadow Meats, on Melrose between Pike and Pine, for all of your Independence Day grilling needs.

[Photography David La Spina for the New York Times; Rain Shadow Meats Illustration by Graham Baba Architects. Both of those links are worth following to see more of their respective work.]