Spring at Eastern Shore

Rich came down from NYC this past weekend so that we could head out to Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary and lend pattrice a hand for a day. Rich has wanted to visit the sanctuary for a while, and I like to get out there once a month or so. Well, once a month is my stated goal, but I’ve only made it out there four times in the past ten months!

There are many reasons why it is important to me to make that trip. Partially simply to show some kind of support and solidarity, to make the effort for someone who is a bit off of the beaten path, for someone who contributes so much to the movement, and to the life and health of over a hundred chickens. And a few ducks, cats, and dogs as well. Support is important, and sometimes I think it is a part of activism that we don’t pay enough attention to. As it happens, pattrice is the author of Aftershock, and creating sanctuary for each other is something she talks about. It is something I think about often.

There is also the fact that I learn a lot every time I am there. I learn about gardening, about composting, I learn that the chickens and the wild birds communicate effortlessly, and that even I can pick up a phrase here and there. Last weekend it was the hum that can be loosely translated to “be alert, something might be up.”

Added to that is simple enjoyment. I got to see the babies I’d taxied down last month, as well as the rooster. The rooster was the same, a bit full of himself, but not so much that he was challenging the others. He is obviously thrilled to be wandering around the sanctuary. The babies grew a ton, but were still definitely babies. They grow so fast! I’m glad I got to see them one more time in their baby guise. They’ll be full grown in no time.

Don’t they look like the rooster is showing them something important?

After Rich and I cleaned out one of the coops and spread a fresh layer of hay, we raked two areas of the yard clear of the sweetgum fruits. They are hard to walk on, for birds, humans, and I imagine dogs and cats as well, and they also inhibit growth of plants. So we raked up the fruits and added them to the compost pile. pattrice worked on some gardening tasks, which included planting a couple clumps of grass. This proved fascinating for the birds, who gathered around to nibble on the treat!

On one of my trips back from the compost pile, Sparrow posed for me. Beautiful and photogenic, which I think she was well aware of!

Of course it wasn’t all work, as enjoyable as it was to spend time working outside in perfect spring weather! Rich and I brought some lunch and other goodies from Stickyfingers, and so we all enjoyed a delicious lunch, great conversation, and had plenty of time to give love and attention to the various cats and dogs that have come to find a home with pattrice as well. The most recent addition is Loca, who is full of amazing energy and joy.

Someday I’ll have to post about Madeline, who is part deer, part cat, part pig, part Jurassic mammal, and all that hidden in a dog costume. She needs her own post, as you can imagine!

little peepers

A couple months ago, one of the Poplar Spring volunteers came across a rooster wandering around Silver Springs. This was not an ideal place for a chicken to be living, so the volunteer managed (after quite a bit of time) to catch him and rescue him. They could house him temporarily at Poplar Spring, but his final home was going to be Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary. I’d been meaning to get back out there anyway, so I volunteered to drive him down this weekend.

On Thursday I got an email asking if I could swing by the DC Animal shelter on my way out of town and pick up some baby chicks that had come in that also needed to go to ES. Great timing, and I was excited because there is little that is cuter than baby chicks!

And that’s how I ended up being a chicken taxi today!

The babies were in the cab of the truck with me in their own carrier. If you’ve never heard baby birds peeping, well, you’ve been missing out! There is something ethereal about it, and the peeps seem to float around them, rather than coming from any of them individually. Sometimes, when they’re especially happy, there is an additional whistling sound added, and it sounds like the beginnings of a song a songbird would sing.

They traveled easily, peeping when they were awake, flopping into sleep in that boneless way that babies do. It worried me a bit at first, and I’d wake them up to make sure they were really just asleep. Poor things! They must have been annoyed with the dratted human who kept interrupting their naps! We all settled down, though, and they spent quite a bit of time in a heap of babies.

Once we got to pattrice’s, the babies were set up in a bigger cage under lamps to make sure they stay warm enough. They got their food and water, and they were curious and energetic, eating the food, and leaning on each other as they fell into brief naps. They sang their happy chirps, and I’d swear their joy is contagious.

Anger, activism, and taking care of ourselves

Anger and activism is something that came up in one of the sessions at AR07. I remember one woman worrying about a question that was brought up in this video – that if she stopped being angry, her activism would lose steam.

I think we can all understand that, because I imagine we have all had one or many pivotal moments where we experienced various degrees of anger, outrage, quite possibly hate, and these pivotal moments often spurred us to become the people and activists we are today. Do we hold onto that anger to fuel our activism? Or will that lead us to burnout? Do we let ourselves feel it, and then let it go, trusting that our activism won’t fade just because the anger doesn’t burn continuously?

Buddhist thought probably isn’t for everyone, but it is still a perspective that is worth listening to. The video is about 10 minutes long, and around minute 4 or 5 is where they talk about anger and activism.

And you might want to read (or reread) one of pattrice’s blog entries on nurturing activism. If you haven’t read “Aftershock” yet, you should do that as well.

I’ve recently made some big changes in how I take care of myself, and rereading pattrice’s entry on nurturing activism had me nodding my head. I never disagreed that it would be a good thing, but I don’t think I realized just what a toll was being taken on me by my constant sleep deprivation and my lack of attention to my water intake. From pattrice’s blog:

Your brain is part of your body and its functioning depends on how you treat your body. If you’re going to be as smart and creative as you can be, you have to take care of your brain. Take a multivitamin to make sure you’re getting all of the micronutrients you need. Be sure to get your essential fatty acids, since your brain is mostly fat. (I take a vegan DHA supplement just to be sure.) Don’t forget to drink your water, since dehydration slows down brain functioning. Do take my advise about going outside, since moderate exercise like walking helps to oxygenate your brain.

As logical as these words are, having felt the very real change in the past few weeks as I’ve made it a point to take better care of myself makes these words feel revolutionary. A friend forwarded a New York Magazine article to me today, on sleep deprivation in children and how it impacted cognitive abilities.

Sleep loss debilitates our body’s ability to extract glucose from the bloodstream. Without this stream of basic energy, one part of the brain suffers more than the rest: the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for what’s called “executive function.” Among these executive functions are the orchestration of thoughts to fulfill a goal, the prediction of outcomes, and perceiving consequences of actions. So tired people have difficulty with impulse control, and their abstract goals like studying take a back seat to more entertaining diversions. A tired brain perseverates—it gets stuck on a wrong answer and can’t come up with a more creative solution, repeatedly returning to the same answer it already knows is erroneous.

I am not a child, but I have experienced that brain-in-a-rut syndrome as a side-effect of sleep-deprivation. This is one of those things that seems so obvious, and yet I have had such a habit of sleep-deprivation that I had forgotten what my thoughts and thought-processes felt like when I was rested. The difference wasn’t slight, it was significant.

Sleep is a biological imperative for every species on Earth. But humans alone try to resist its pull. Instead, we see sleep not as a physical need but a statement of character. It’s considered a sign of weakness to admit fatigue, and it’s a sign of strength to refuse to succumb to slumber. Sleep is for wusses.

But perhaps we are blind to the toll it is taking on us. The University of Pennsylvania’s David Dinges did an experiment shortening adults’ sleep to six hours a night. After two weeks, they reported they were doing okay. Yet on a battery of tests, they proved to be just as impaired as someone who has stayed awake for 24 hours straight.

Dinges did the experiment to demonstrate how sleep loss is cumulative, and how easily our judgment can be fooled by sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, it’s easy to read his research and think, “I would suffer, but not that bad. I would be the exception.” We’ve coped on too-little sleep for years and managed to get by.

I’ve been living on 4-6 hours of sleep a night for years, with some extra on the weekends. “I don’t need as much sleep as most people,” is one of the things I told myself as I struggled to concentrate at work. In the past few weeks I’ve been teaching myself to go to sleep earlier, and mostly have managed 7 – 7.5 hours of sleep per night, which is better but still not ideal. The nights when I have slipped back into the trap of going to bed later than I intended and got only 6 hours of sleep, I could feel a difference the next day. Why have I let myself get so little sleep for so many years? The reasons were layered, but in a way, it comes back to this, which bears repeating:

Sleep is a biological imperative for every species on Earth. But humans alone try to resist its pull. Instead, we see sleep not as a physical need but a statement of character. It’s considered a sign of weakness to admit fatigue, and it’s a sign of strength to refuse to succumb to slumber. Sleep is for wusses.

I know better now. It might take time to kick the habit of sleep deprivation completely, but at least I recognize its importance now. I believe in sleep, and I’m stronger for it.