a voice for the voiceless
Larry, demonstrating the muddy state of the pig yard
Patches is 12 years old, and suffers from the usual indignities that come with old age: arthritis, and greater difficulty in getting around. She spends most of her time in the smaller pig barn, which is where most of the older pigs prefer to hang out.
It rained quite a bit this past week, so the pig yard was a mess. A boot-sucking muddy mess.
Patches had left the barn after being hassled by one of the other pigs, and she just couldn’t get herself back to it. Normally she can, but not only does she have arthritis, she has some weakness in the rear legs, and the mud makes it a thousand times more difficult.
In other words, she needed some help.
So, we have: a 500lb pig (I’m guessing at the weight), who is arthritic and weak in the rear legs and we also have a muddy quagmire of a pig yard. And we have Dave and four women. We might be strong, but we’re still kind of puny.
The mud was cold, and she was shivering. Dave got an old burlap bag or something of the sort, that he rolled up so we could use it as a sort of sling. This was all so much more difficult than you might imagine. First, Patches was laying in a way that didn’t have her rear feet under neath her, so we had to shift her to the side a bit and back her up so that she was facing the right way and had her legs under her. By sheer chance we were able to get the towel under her belly. Of course for a second we had Dave’s leg under her as well! Thank goodness not much of her weight was on his leg!
Once we had the towel under her belly, we tried lifting her rear end up. Two of us on each end of the towel. This didn’t work all that well, so we then got it behind her, sort of under her butt. Sheryl on one end of that towel, me on the other, Dave directly behind Patches using all his strength and his body too to help push her along, all of us slipping and sliding in the mud. Amy and Lisa were to her front, directing her toward the barn, motivating her with cantaloupe bribes , and keeping the other curious pigs away.
I wasn’t sure we’d be able to do it for a while, but then suddenly we got Patches standing up! Even then it was difficult, because the mud would suck us all in, and at the same time it gave us no purchase. She had a hard time lifting her feet out of the mud, but of course we were all having that problem. She slowly would take steps forward, and when we finally got to the area closer to the barn the ground was solid, our system collapsed, the towel slipped, and Patches was half laying down again.
We all rested and regrouped, and Patches was trying again before the rest of us. We quickly put our backs into helping her stand up, and damn if she wasn’t up and moving again in a heartbeat. Much easier on solid ground!
She got into the barn, mostly with Dave’s help by then, and laid down in a pile of hay, comfortable and dry again, and I’m sure quite exhausted. Her leg muscles were quivering from the exertion. So were the rest of ours.
I can’t remember the last time I have been so covered in mud! Dave actually had to change before finishing the rest of the chores with us.
Some people might hear this story and wonder how much Patches is suffering, or question the quality of her life. The truth is this: Patches has arthritis and she is on meds for that. She is not suffering, and normally she can get around, though with increasing difficulty. Her time is slowly drawing to a close, as all life does, but the end is not here yet, it is not yet her time. We’ll keep helping her, fighting with her and for her; getting muddy is nothing compared to what I would do to help these animals.
Patches on 12-25-2009.
Meanwhile, Terry was on her way to a vet hospital about 3 hours away. A cruelty case in NC where the animals were starving to death and living without shelter, where piglets had frozen into the mud and died, ended up with the judge giving all of the animals back to the person who neglected them so severely. A couple of them were sick enough that their “owner” considered them worthless and therefore allowed them to be rescued; after spending a week at the vets, those three are home now at Poplar Spring.
Helping Patches reminded me of helping Wilbur, back when he struggled so mightily to stand and walk. And both are testaments to the strength of will that we all have to survive. To live.
did you know that bunnies like to play in the snow?
Tortilla chips are simply vehicles for salsa. And this post is a tortilla chip for the latest Izzy & Morty video salsa. So, a tortilla chip post.
The wind this week has stolen most of my thoughts, so I’m just going to post a few completely random links and pictures and the video.
I read “Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly” recently, and I posted about it over on Animal Rights & AntiOppression. Well, I posted about part of the book. It’s a bit much for just one post. I might post about the organic agriculture issue later. What I talked about in that particular post was the Locavore issue of Food Miles. And from a sustainability perspective, he decimates the “sustainable meat” argument. If you ever talk to Locavores, go read that post, and then go read his book. Or tell your Locavore friends to read his book.
we got a lot of snow a couple weeks ago!
More on the environmental ammunition side, Mary posted “On Soy, Soybeans and Mixed Messages“, which is a must-read if you’ve ever had a meat eater get on your case about the soy you eat and its connection to rainforest deforestation.
And Sea Shepherd’s “Bob Barker” has the whalers on the run!
Edward and his new buddy are getting along!
A few months ago, a great zine was published by Microcosm called Sick. “Sick collects peoples’ experiences with illness to help establish a collective voice of those impacted by illness within radical/left/DIY communities. The zine is meant to be a resource for those who are living with illness as well as those who have not directly experienced it themselves. Contributors discuss personal experiences as well as topics such as receiving support, providing support, and being an informed patient. These writings are meant to increase understandings of illness and further discussion as well as action towards building communities of care.”
wilbur shows us how to stay warm when it is cold
As it happens, a friend of mine was one of the contributors, with a great piece on living with migraines. I’ve had a lot of friends who have suffered from migraines, and it has made me very sensitive to a common misuse of the term by people who either don’t understand the difference between a migraine and a headache, or simply want to dramatize their own discomfort by claiming a migraine. That’s the least of it, though, and I found Brittany’s article to be a really good read.
The whole compilation was a good read; I recommend it to everyone.
penelope's secret smoking habit is revealed!
Avatar is a film that is getting a lot of attention and breaking a lot of records at the box office. It is also, apparently, a recruiting film for eco-terrorists! (Of course Hoot and Charlotte’s Web are both soft-core eco-terrorism films for kids. Good thing we have these eagle-eyed people keeping an eye out for dangerous radical ideas like, say, not completely destroying the earth! That can’t be a good thing. Right?)
And finally, the salsa: 1:33 minutes of Izzy and Morty:
I am very thankful to live so close to an animal sanctuary. I am also thankful that I have no family obligations that would make this holiday difficult for me. Instead, I headed to the sanctuary for morning chores.
This is sort of my default for holiday mornings. And I’m not alone. Holidays seem to bring more people than just a normal weekend day, which makes it a pretty easy volunteer day.
Spending time at the sanctuary gives me about 200 reasons to be thankful, and for some of them I’m extra thankful because it hasn’t been easy for them.
Wilbur is one of those – after surviving extreme neglect last winter before being rescued, Wilbur ended up partially paralyzed this summer for reasons that seem to be more a guess than a diagnosis. He simply stopped being able to use his rear legs, which might have been due to an infection. The vets didn’t think he had a chance, but Terry and Dave didn’t agree. The medication the vets gave him did help, and once he started moving his back legs a little bit we knew that he would likely be okay in the long run. His road to recovery has been long, but with steady progress. He wanders to the goat yard and back, to the stream and back, and grows stronger every day. Today he’s not only able to walk, he trotted towards where we were gathering leftover pumpkins! He has made an amazing recovery so far, and watching him happily munch a pumpkin is definitely something to be thankful for.
I was also thankful that it was a rare foggy morning, making for interesting pictures that I don’t normally see.
Edward is always gorgeous, but this morning when he would make his odd peacock sound (cross between a guinea and a crow, as best I can describe it) small plumes of “smoke” would come from his mouth. I can honestly say I’ve never seen that before!
Darcy, the blind horse, was walking around neighing for his herd mates. It’s heartbreaking to hear him calling for them, and looking for them, but at the same time it makes me thankful that he is at a place that doesn’t see him as a someone whose value is based on youth, usability, or money. He is highly valued simply because he is loved. And he is in a place where his blindness isn’t a handicap, though it is sometimes a challenge. He is in a place where when he calls, someone responds, even if it’s a human responding by helping him find his herd mates.
They say that the more we love, the more we can love. I am thankful for the 200 or so residents of the sanctuary for showing me how true that really is.
I got to the sanctuary at 7am this morning, sort of shocked. Like, what was I doing there at 7am?
It was so beautiful though. Peaceful, the moon was setting, everything was quiet and hushed. I love those early mornings.
My schedule was:
What was I thinking? I was actually thinking that I know myself, and I know I can’t walk away from work I can see needs to be done even if I haven’t signed up for it. So I might as well sign up and stay to the bitter end. Plus the bitter end comes with Stickyfingers cake!
I actually spent almost the entire day in the chicken yard. I was working with two of the weekday employees, which I love because they know so much about the chickens, and I learn so much. Simply based on the timing of when I asked the farm manager where he wanted me to start working, I was sent to the chicken yard to help there first thing. And that’s where I stayed until we finished that area, at about 11am.
The chicken area always ends up feeling like it is in its own universe. It is not far from the house, but it is down a slight hill, so the busy activity happens almost entirely out of sight of us. And it isn’t on the way to a different part of the sanctuary, so unless someone is going to the chicken yard, they don’t come down the hill.
In other words, it was almost surreal in its peacefulness, given the frantic activity we knew was happening just a couple hundred yards away, as everyone scrambled to get all the last minute things done for the big event.
Even when I made my way up the hill to see what I could do to help with set up, I ended up inside the gift shop folding t-shirts. While this is not my favorite activity, it was also quiet and peaceful, and even more significantly, it had nothing to do with tables and chairs. Tables and chairs are the typical set-up and break-down chore, and that’s what I’ve always ended up working on at every event I’ve helped at in the past. Today, purely by chance, I didn’t touch a single table or a single chair. If I’d had a dream, that’s what I’d have dreamt. Only it didn’t occur to me to dream of that; it just landed in my lap.
When I left almost exactly 12 hours after I arrived, Terry told me that they are guestimating that 1200 people showed up. Many more people than they’ve ever had in the past. I hope the silent auction went well. I put down some bids right before I headed down to the chicken barn when the event was about to start, but I don’t think I won any of them.
It is hard to gauge the size of the crowd from the chicken yard, for many of the same reasons that it was a peaceful oasis during the morning chores. We get a steady stream of people, but I have a feeling plenty of people never even make it down the hill.
The Open House tends to be primarily the current supporters of the sanctuary. And while you would think that means mostly vegetarians and vegans, truly most of the supporters are neither. They are the target audience of a sanctuary for precisely that reason.
There were many people who had never held a chicken before today. I am pretty sure that everyone who has ever held a chicken falls in love. I talked to some great people, and saw several people I recognized from previous events. Cornelius and Leopold, the Japanese Silkies, continue to be a big hit. They’re super sweet; they don’t necessarily make it easy to pick them up, but once you have them, they seem to enjoy being held. Oddly, or at least contrary to people’s assumptions, most of the chickens who don’t mind being held are roosters.
At one point we could hear a horse whinnying. I assumed it was Darcy; he’s blind, and thought Tally wears a bell to make it easier for him to find and keep up with the rest of the horses, sometimes he gets separated. And so he’ll whinny. This time it was Didi whinnying, which I thought was unusual, but then I also heard Darcy whinnying. I think Didi might have been calling back to him. Eventually Darcy heard Tally’s bell, and they walked over to each other, and touched noses. My heart melted.
At the end of the afternoon, the chickens started parading themselves into the barn. It was the end of the day, and they knew it. They wanted to go in and get settled for the night! It’s pretty amazing to watch.
After I helped with clean up chores (which again, purely by chance, ended up having nothing to do with tables or chairs), it was cake time. And cookie time. And leftover samosa and other tidbit time. Relaxing time, with fellow volunteers. I got some really sweet comments about this blog (*waves*), which is funny because there are actually very few people associated with the sanctuary who do read this blog. Especially not my fellow Saturday volunteers! Though as their source of Izzy and Morty pictures and videos, maybe they’ll start.
As we were all milling about, revved up on our sugar highs, Wilbur came over to join us. To do this he had to squeeze himself between two parts of a fence, offset specifically to be wide enough for humans to get through without having to be messing with gates, but essentially it is closed off for the other animals. No way will horses or mules or cows or pigs to get through there! Well, not full grown pigs. Wilbur just barely squeezed through, and it was hilarious. Of course he was going to get into everything if he stayed on the atypical side of the fence, so I sacrificed one of the awesome chocolate chip cookies that one of the other volunteers makes, and bribed Wilbur back through the gate we opened for him.
He was so cute. And his strength? I thought it was amazing that he was all the way down at the goat yard yesterday, but this morning, he walked all the way down to the creek; past the chicken yard by quite a ways.
We watched him walk past, and looked at each other wondering “is he supposed to be all the way down here?” As far as I know, he got himself back up to the pig yard just fine. He seems to have made some major progress in the past couple of weeks!
It was a beautiful, if exhausting, day.
The first thing I saw when I arrived at the sanctuary this morning was Wilbur hanging out with the sheep near the gift shop. It was exciting, because he’s really getting around more, and it was hilarious because when one of the sheep (Clover, perhaps) tried to say hello, Wilbur warned him off. They were around the same height, so on first glance Wilbur seemed to fit right in. Later Wilbur went down to the goat yard to check things out there. Hannah was curious, but wouldn’t get close enough to sniff noses when Wilbur put his nose close to the gate. It was cute, like they were both trying to figure out how the other fit into their view of the world!
The first person I saw was a fellow volunteer, Amy, and the first thing she said was that Izzy and Morty were doing great.
I felt like I let out a breath I’d been holding all week. We poked our head into the gift shop, where they were chilling out, and saw for ourselves. Morty had grown a ton, was 3 or 4 times the size from last weekend. Izzy is not growing as fast, and in comparison to Morty doesn’t look like he’s growing at all, but that’s just an illusion. He is growing, and he’s been doing great. He’s still a little wobbly, but he really is doing great.
Morty is already a big fan of belly rubs. There is something incredibly precious about this tiny miniature pig rolling over for a belly rub.
It was a fairly crazy busy day. The goats have had pink eye running through the herd, and I helped Terry give them their ointment. My job was to hold them still. Goats are strong, and it was quite a workout!
The Open House is tomorrow, and somehow all these little chores, which weren’t actually so little, took up large chunks of time and effort. By the time we were done with chores, it was 3pm. 3pm!! On our really slow days we’re done by 1pm.
But at the end of the day we got to see Morty and Izzy running around outside, exploring bits and pieces of their world.
Morty’s world is a bit bigger than Izzy’s. Izzy sticks close to Terry. 30 minutes of excitement, and they were down for the count. Just like the babies they are.
I will put in about a 12 hour day tomorrow, not including travel time, but that’s nothing compared to the work of those more involved in the event planning. I get exhausted just thinking about everything they do to get an event like this off the ground!
First is the adorable Hannah. As I drove up the long driveway at the sanctuary Saturday morning, I saw Hannah out near the pond trotting after one of the other Saturday volunteers, Leesa. She’s adorable, and she’s tiny. It wasn’t as noticeable when she was in the quarantine stall by herself, but out with the other goats you really notice. She’s still skinny, which is part of it, but she’s also shorter than even the smallest goats. She seems to like people (especially if she thinks you have food), but she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the goats yet. She’s only been out in the main group for a few days though. So Saturday she was out and about, mostly away from the other goats. It was neat watching her explore her new world. Terry says she’s comfortable with the other animals, and has laid down with the cows, apparently not concerned with the difference in species. Or size.
As I watched her, I got the feeling that she was filled with wonder, that life was a happy adventure now. I reflected on Terry’s assessment of her when she first had arrived, and how she seemed like she’d given up, didn’t lift her head or complain no matter what they did as they treated her for all the parasites and infections she had. Compare her early attitude to her current curiosity and comfort and happiness, and it makes me want to cry a little, in that happy way. I can’t help it, the change is just that beautiful.
She came from a farm in Virginia, we know that from the tag that was in her ear when she was first rescued. How she went from a farm in Virginia, where she bears the evidence of numerous babies, to wandering the streets of DC will always be a mystery. The basics are clear – she was likely a nanny goat, and her purpose was to bear babies who would be killed. For meat, or for other purposes, we don’t know. She’s not of the typical dairy goat breed, but at the small farms there are less distinctions, and any animal will be used for any purpose. She was likely sent to auction once she was “spent”, whatever that meant to the people who were profiting from her.
Once in a while, animals like her get lucky, and get to live out their lives at a sanctuary. I think Hannah knows just how lucky she is.
Wilbur is not only standing up on his own now and walking around with ease, if also with wobbles, he’s in the big pig yard now during the day. He isn’t completely happy about that – he was spoiled rotten when he was in the infirmary area and he would prefer that treatment continue indefinitely – but it is good for him. He’s walking more, and further, and that’s what he needs to continue to build up his strength. This is still amazing to me – he’s standing up on his own, he’s walking, and he’s strong enough to be in the big pig yard. To think that 2 months ago, we weren’t sure he’d live, or walk again.
Penelope is an older pig, one of those rescued 10 or so years ago from a truck on its way to slaughter that broke down in DC in the middle of a heat wave. The trucker abandoned the truck, the local animal activists saved the pigs who hadn’t already perished. They’re aging now, only about a quarter of them are still with us, and those who are deal with varying degrees of arthritis. Penelope was moved permanently to the infirmary area somewhere between 6 months and a year ago. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but she was moved there because her arthritis was getting bad enough that the big pig yard was no longer the place for her. She hadn’t stepped outside the infirmary area since being moved in there…until Saturday.
Saturday she walked outside and found herself a mud puddle that Parker (in the infirmary area recovering from an infection on his foot) and Wilbur and Jolene have been working on for a while. She laid down in it, and I swear she was smiling.
I scratched her back and muddy belly with my rake, and she grunted her happiness. After that when she’d see me near the pig barn, she’d grunt, as if she was saying “hey, you, over here! Back scratches appreciated!”
Smart pig. Who could resist? It worked every time.
It is so easy to take that common sentiment, caring for animals, and to become consistent with it. We need only think of others. Does it hurt them? Is it what they’d want? Is it what we’d want for ourselves?
It isn’t a logical maze. It is beautifully simple.
Go vegan.
Hannah was so cute on Saturday. As the three of us walked up to the quarantine barn, her little head popped up in the screened window of her stall. “Meh-eh-eh-eh,” she called out to us, though I think it was Terry she was really happy to see. Terry’s been spending a couple hours a day just hanging out with Hannah so she doesn’t get too lonely, and it’s created a clear bond between them.
She was perky, and at least to my eyes it looked like she had put on some much needed weight since last weekend. She is eating grain now, which she hadn’t been interested in at all last week, and she’s clearly wanting to get out into the bigger world. That’s maybe the biggest change from last week; if I was to interpret her attitude, I’d say that she’s learned that she has good things to look forward to at the sanctuary. She has hope, but more than that, she has expectations of enjoyment, of pleasure, of just being herself. Her goat personality is starting to shine through.
As we left, she stood on her hind legs to watch us through the screened window again. They’re having her checked again on Monday for parasites, to see if she can get at least some limited social time with the other goats. They’re still worried that she should put on more weight first – some of the goats (the bad boys, Lenny and Jeremy, but also a few others) love to head butt, and she might not be strong enough yet for that kind of rough-housing.
Wilbur is now standing and walking on his own! He was tuckered out from all the walking Dave had had him do in the morning, so he wasn’t interested in standing or walking by the time we got over there (not even for a banana-bribe!) but he’s been doing so well that they’re going to soon let him into the big pig yard for about an hour a day to see how he does. He needs to build up strength, and being with the other pigs will likely help him do that, push him a bit. They let his brother, Patrick, out to spend time with him last week, and they apparently went to a mud hole and lounged together, with Wilbur happily nibbling on Patrick’s ear. Wish I could have seen that! It was so nice to hear that their brother-bond is still strong, despite this month and a half of separation.
Jolene is also doing quite well. She’s still in the “infirmary” portion of the pig barn, but she’s been going out and walking and grazing, and appears to be feeling pretty good.
Harley hung out with us for a few minutes. It is amazing to think of how much he’s grown. He’s big enough now that we do a double-take, and say “is that Harley?” And then we look for his black nose to assure ourselves that it is, indeed, Harley. He’s as sweet as ever.
Down in the chicken yard, we watched Robin for a while. She is from the group of 5 While Leghorns who came as days old chicks, found in a grocery store parking lot in Silver Springs, MD, and we call her a girl out of habit. In her early days she would make nests, but her visual and behavioral characteristics split the difference between a rooster and a hen now. She’s a mystery to us.
To the other chickens, there is either no mystery to them, or it simply doesn’t matter. Or both. She’s part of the flock. What else really matters?
We were very slow at the sanctuary today. It was hot and humid, which doesn’t help, but we also kept getting distracted by various conversations. I told Terry about my coworker, and that I was starting to see that I was underestimating the power of the sanctuary. She said that she’s seen people go vegan overnight just because they had a chance to touch an animal and it made them think. I have always understood that the purpose of the sanctuary is outreach as much as it is saving the animals themselves, but I didn’t realize how effective it is.
We also had the meet the new goat, Hannah, who is in quarantine for a couple weeks until she is free of parasites and has gained enough weight to be strong enough to manage the crowd of rowdy goats. She was found in SE DC wandering around, so we don’t know her full story. What we do know is that she is between 6 and 15 years old (the vet couldn’t give a better estimate), she came from a small farm in Virginia, and she has had babies. The likely story is that she was a nanny goat, producing babies after babies who were then killed for whatever reason people have to kill goats, and when she was “spent”, she was probably then sold…perhaps she was sold to Santeria practitioners, who commonly use animals in their rituals. She’s so skinny it is hard to imagine that anyone would have bought her for another purpose.
So she was wandering the streets, picked up by animal control, and now she is safe and sound at the sanctuary. She is skinny and has two kinds of parasites, she has pink eye and a secondary eye infection caused by the pink eye.
She’s a mess, in other words. Terry said that she seemed to have given up at first. Weak and tired, she let them do whatever they needed to medicate her, and hardly reacted. She just sat there with her head down, barely breathing.
Today when we went up to the quarantine barn to clean out her stall and give her fresh water and some attention, she was perky. When she heard us, her head came up and she looked alert and curious. She has been eating a lot of hay, but not the grain feed. She doesn’t seem to know what it is or what to do with it. I tried to feed it to her from my hand, but she wasn’t even interested in sniffing it. She likely has never been giving anything but hay; she certainly doesn’t know anything about treats.
She wasn’t too certain about us at first – the last time a bunch of people were in her stall, she got poked a few times with needles, but we scratched her neck, where her horns can’t reach, and her eyes drifted closed in happiness.
She’s going to be fine.
Wilbur not only stood up while he ate, shifting his weight for a while until he seemed to find a stable position (Dave says he’s had to relearn how to balance, and that’s what all the shifting around is about), he walked outside to the little mudhole he’s been working on. Watching him walk…amazing, and uplifting.
Jolene, a pig who hadn’t been feeling well recently and who thus has been living in the part of the barn where the quarantine stall is, apparently is feeling much better. She hung out with the cows for a while, and then walked all the way down to the creek, which would be a good 5 minute brisk walk for us, longer for her. It made me laugh! And wonder – how did she even know the creek was down there?
She came back up with Jake, who had been hanging out in the woods near the creek.
In the chicken barn there was some excitement when there was a black snake in one of the egg laying boxes. This is not an uncommon occurrence, and usually we call Dave over to take care of it. But I picked up a snake once before at the sanctuary, and I figured that I was being silly by calling Dave away from what he was doing to take care of this.
So I picked up the snake, who was at least 5 feet long, and carried him down across to the other side of the creek. When I went through the gate, which required some wrestling to get open, the snake wrapped his tail around one of the rungs of the gate. It was pretty funny, to me.
These snakes are constrictors, but generally speaking they only go after the hen’s eggs. Still, to be on the safe side, they are relocated. He wasn’t too happy about it, but I do hope he appreciated the nice place I picked out for him!
By the way, if anyone has advice on handling snakes, I’d welcome it. The picture looks like I’m choking him, but I promise I was holding him only tight enough to keep ahold of him. I don’t know much about them, however, and for all I know it isn’t healthy for them to be held with their head straight up like that.
When we were finally done with the chores, we got to feast on some peach cobbler and soy ice cream that nothoney had brought for us. It was so good! And we got to meet her Mina, which was great, as we’d all heard so much about her. She is a super sweet dog, didn’t even think about chasing after the accidentally-tamed adolescent geese who had no fear of her at all. (This lack of fear of people and other natural predators is why the wildlife rehabbers asked Poplar Spring to take them.)
Earlier when Mina was walking around, the cows lined up to check her out. Their typical curiosity!
By the time the cobbler was eaten, Mina was completely tuckered out.
Dogs aren’t generally brought to the sanctuary, as they can disrupt the rescued wildlife as well as freak out some of the sanctuary residents, but Mina has been quite sick, and there are always exceptions to the rules. Mina is one of them.
One of the other volunteers had brought grapes, so after stuffing ourselves with peach cobbler we fed grapes to the chickens and to the goats and sheep. Juniper spends more of these hot days in her own stall with the fan keeping her cool, until later in the afternoon when there is more shade and the wind tends to pick up a little, cooling things down. It was nice to be able to give her treats when she didn’t have to deal with any of the other goats around, and it was nice for me, because it was one of the rare times I was able to interact with her. Usually she just doesn’t want to be around people, but clearly she makes exceptions if you’re a person-with-grapes. I fed them to her, and my heart melted. I’ve always been a bit in awe of her, and her story, and admired her from afar, so it was special to have her welcome me into her space…even if it was temporary, and only because I had grapes.
Saturday was a long day. Montgomery County has a “Farm Tour” weekend every year, and Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary is on the list of participating farms. From a volunteer standpoint, this means that we get to the sanctuary at 7am to begin animal chores and/or setup tasks, depending on what’s needed at the time. And while that meant I had to leave home at 6am, there are some compensations for being up that early.
It was foggy near the sanctuary, and the long driveway was thick with it. I was startled when Jacob appeared out of the fog.
It was good to see that the cows were headed back towards the main part of the farm. Sometimes they’re nowhere to be found on these event days, and people will wander around asking if we have cows. For the sake of outreach, it is nice when they’re present, at least for part of the day!
Volunteering for the events is done in shifts, so the fact that it was such a long day was by my choice. I chose to start with the early morning animal chores and work both event shifts; it certainly isn’t expected that we’ll work the entire day.
There were enough people there for the early shift that I helped with setting up some tables first. At one point one of the other regular Saturday volunteers called me over to the pig barn. “Quick! You have to see this!” And it was Wilbur, standing on his own! He’d stood up on his own the day before, and the farm manager took immediate advantage, and bribed him to walk outside by holding a food dish as a reward. And so Wilbur walked, completely on his own, those few steps out of the barn. It amazes me; just a few weeks ago we didn’t know if he’d ever walk again. We didn’t know if he’d live, and now we’re expecting a full recovery, and probably quicker than we had even hoped for.
The pig yard itself was in that beautiful state that is practically legend. Dry and smooth, it makes the job so much easier, and likely makes us sound insane as we talk with real joy about the state of the pig yard on days like Saturday! The pigs clearly agreed, though it is their self-created mud hole that makes them happiest.
The expected attendance was 800-1000 people, and most of those people at this event are non-vegans, non-vegetarians. I’m not sure yet how many people did show up, but I do know that Terry and Dave bought more vegan hotdogs and burgers than they did last year, and still sold out earlier. Either people were hungrier, or there were more people. After the event we were talking about it, and Terry was saying that in the first few years she had people refuse to eat either, that she’d give some away for free just to get people to try it. Every year people are less and less resistant to the vegan dogs and burgers, and it is now rare to hear anyone pass up on eating lunch.
I’d only sold 2 of the cookbooks I put up for sale as a fundraiser here on my blog a while back, so I donated the rest to the annual Yard Sale, which is part of the Farm Tour event. It made a lot of sense to have some vegan cookbooks available; I think I’ll donate some every year, even if it means I have to buy some to donate! The point is to have them there, more than anything. From what I heard, they sold, I just hope they went home with some non-vegans. (Or even better, some soon-to-be vegans!)
The experiences during the day range wildly. One of the first people I talked to asked, when I pointed out the guineas, “Do they taste good? I’ve heard that guineas taste good.” The woman who was with him was shaking her head at him as I explained that it was a sanctuary and so we didn’t eat any of the animals. He didn’t really get it, my feeling is that he thought of the sanctuary maybe on par with conservation groups, who often promote hunting.
Another woman was overheard saying “I don’t want to pet a rooster…I eat roosters.”
Those are the frustrating comments to overhear…but just like the incidences of people refusing to eat vegan food have declined, it seems that there are also less overheard comments such as these. Of course it could be that people have become aware enough to hold their tongues, not necessarily that they aren’t thinking those thoughts…it is hard to know, but it does seem to be a trend in a positive direction.
There were a lot of positive conversations as well. As I talked to a family and introduced them to the rooster I was holding (who was eating up the attention), a little boy declared that he didn’t want to eat animals. I encouraged this, though I’m not sure his parents appreciated my efforts! Another little girl, maybe 4 years old, was thrilled to be able to touch a chicken, and laughed with glee at the experience; she told me with a grin that she was vegan. She overheard her mom asking about whether the animals on the farm are vegan, which is what sparked her comment, and so I wasn’t sure if she really was vegan, though she seemed confident of the statement; it seemed to be a term that was part of her life. And sure enough, when I asked her mom, she confirmed it. Their family is vegan.
I found that thrilling, though I know it is preaching to the choir.
A young family with their 8 month old baby came down to the chicken yard to meet Liesel and Sylvia to decide who to sponsor. I showed them where Liesel was dust bathing inside the barn; she’s not much for attention from humans, which they took in stride, and were content to watch her be content in the barn. Sylvia enjoys attention, and one of the other volunteers went to find her under the tree, where most of the chickens had been spending the day. (Unlike the humans at the farm, the chickens were smart enough to stay in the shade!) The baby was getting fussy, and the parents were feeling pressure to head back, but I assured them Carole would only take a second to bring Sylvia to them. And I’m so glad I encouraged them to wait for that extra minute, because the transformation in their baby was absolutely a joy to watch. He felt Sylvia’s feathers, and his eyes went wide, he looked up at his mom, and all his fussiness just melted away. His scrunched up about-to-cry expression turned into big grins, as he bounced and giggled in his mom’s arms.
At the end of the day I ended up in a conversation with a woman who I was reading as vegan, but who I wasn’t sure was actually vegan. Does anyone else do this, gauge where on the spectrum someone is? Maybe this is peculiar to me. It was the end of the day, I was tired, and my normal filters were pretty much shot. She seemed to be mostly aware of the issues, and I found myself talking to her perhaps more directly than I usually do (unless I’m talking to other vegans), and with an assumption that she was on the same page with regards to my views towards animal exploitation. As it turns out she’s not even vegetarian. She has some out of town vegan friends, and they’d recently been visiting, so she’d been eating vegan with them. She’d been thinking about the issues.
This part of the conversation came up after she asked about the Japanese Silkies, Leopold and Cornelius, and why chickens would have feathers on their feet.
Being tired, and thus punchy, filters failing, and getting the “vegan” vibe from her in any case, I approached it from the standpoint of humans messing with the very genetics of other species, as a type of power, of control. This led to us talking about the turkeys (since Victor, impressively gorgeous, but also overly-huge and cumbersome, was in eye-sight) and that led me to talk about the dairy cows. The males, the impossibly enormous cows, and the reality that when people tell us they’ve never seen a cow that large, they are right, because they’ve never seen an adult male dairy cow in their lives. Unless they’ve spent time at a sanctuary. This took me down the path of explaining the exploitation and death that surround the dairy industry…and somehow we talked about a pretty broad spectrum of issues in agriculture. Environmental, social, in addition to the animal rights.
She had specific health concerns, pre-existing conditions, that had been holding her back from trying to go vegan. We talked about those, and I recommended “Becoming Vegan“, pointed her to PCRM, and encouraged her to talk to a vegan-friendly nutritionist. I also recommended “Get It Ripe,” because I love that cookbook, and it is written by a nutritionist. She left intent on tracking down these books, looking up information on PCRM, and having decided to get some blood work done now, and then get more done after. After, of course, meaning that she’s going to do it, she’s going to try going vegan.
Most of the groundwork was laid long before I ever talked to her. She has vegan friends, she has eaten plenty of vegan food, she knew the issues pretty well. I think she just needed a push. Needed to talk to people who would listen to what she had to say, really listen about the specific health issue that she had, and give her the confidence that she could work through it.
You know how we get so tired of the protein question? She was finally someone who actually had legitimate protein concerns. She had been protein deficient, due to lead and magnesium (I think magnesium) poisoning, which inhibited the absorption of nutrients. She’s pretty much the exception that proves the rule! It wasn’t permanent, though she does remain cautious because I believe she is more vulnerable to the problem again. We talked about the different grains, like amaranth and quinoa, and the fact that greens are great sources of protein, and of course beans. I explained that I rarely think about nutrition, as long as I’m eating variety. I did mention Vega, since it makes a great fall-back for someone with general protein and nutrient concerns. I use it in my smoothies in the mornings after I get to work, as part of my post-ride meal. Do I need it? No, but it doesn’t hurt either. It is sort of like insurance.
I am hopeful that she’s really going vegan. That it was the right time on the right day and that she got the information she needs. When she left, she thanked me for taking the time to “walk her through it”, as she said.
She was especially appreciative, because she didn’t think it was necessarily part of the farm tour day, so she felt she’d taken me off-topic. I assured her that it was perfectly on topic, that the more animals I could prevent from being killed, the less that needed to be saved.
And indeed, the point of days like the Farm Tour is advocacy. Outreach. Education.
Reformed Fast Food Mascot’s post today cut right to the chase.
A Minnesota pet sitter accused of animal abuse for letting a potbellied pig triple her weight was fined $1,000 and sentenced to a year of probation. So how could the pet sitter have avoided the animal cruelty charges? Simple. Confine the pig in a cage too small for her to turn around in, shoot a captive stun bolt into her brain, then while the stunned pig is still blinking and struggling, dunk her in a tank of scalding water to loosen her hide for skinning.
Some of the pigs at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary have arrived through the courts, through neglect cases. These are farmers who intend to make money off the animals, and had plans to treat the pigs essentially as RFFM described. Yet something went wrong, and they found themselves unable to give even that much “care” to the pigs. Eventually the county will step in and tell the farmers to do something. What they mean by “do something” is “slaughter these animals or we’re going to take them away.” Isn’t that weird? That’s how it works though. When the farmers have so little money that they can’t afford to get the animals to slaughter, the county steps in, and some of the animals end up at sanctuaries like Poplar Spring. And presumably the farmers are prosecuted for neglect…which they would not have been if they’d actually killed the animals. It is a mixed message – killing the animals on purpose to make money off the death is okay. Killing the animals through neglect or otherwise not making money off them is not okay. What is wrong with that picture?
What is missing, of course, is any feeling that the animals in question are individuals.
A month or two ago a small family arrived at Poplar Spring. A mother pig, Polly, and her two sons, Patrick and Wilbur. It was the first time a momma pig had come to the sanctuary with her babies, so we were especially curious to see how they would be, together.
The babies were a few months old by the time the family arrived, so we weren’t sure how much mothering Polly would be doing. They were already weaned, though it is difficult to know whether they would normally have been weaned by that age. The three pigs had come from an extreme neglect case in the county. They’d been living on a trash heap, and it really is amazing that they are alive at all. Polly is quite small for an adult pig. Terry thought that she’d continue to grow, once she finally had enough food, but now they think that Polly’s growth was permanently stunted from malnourishment, that she’ll always be a small pig.
Small, but mighty. When the three first arrived, they stayed in the quarantine stall, as all the new residents do. It was when they went out into the general population that Polly flexed her mom muscles. The first pig to approach them was Peapod, a big love of a pig. I remember when he first came to the sanctuary, as a tiny piglet himself. Now he’s one of the larger pigs, but still a sweetheart. I imagine he was just being friendly, but Polly wasn’t having anything to do with it. She’s probably less than half Peapod’s size, but she didn’t let that stop her – she flipped Peapod right over onto his back. That was mom-speak for “don’t mess with my babies.” They’ve never seen anything like it!
Now they are fully integrated into the group. Polly is often, but not always, near Patrick and Wilbur. The two boys are almost always together. Patrick has polka dots on his butt, which makes him easy to pick out. Plus he’s the one who comes running over to see if we’ve got any goodies for him.
It’s really amazing to see a family of pigs at the sanctuary.
All proceeds will be donated to the sanctuary.
Coupons: http://www.lulu.com/current_specials?cid=eng_advent_specials_112210
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