a voice for the voiceless
Marius's seduction technique
Marius is a trip. He’s been checked for (ahem) hidden testosterone producers several times, but he’s definitely not an intact male, yet he is fairly relentless when it comes to his pursuit of the ladies. He’ll chase all of the other male goats away, while also chasing after the girls with his weird tongue waggle.
A video from about a year ago gives you the benefit of hearing him too!
Sometimes he’ll do a sort of snorting sneeze, which in goats can be part of the seduction routine, or can just mean they’re happy. My google skills aren’t up to par tonight, because I can’t find much in the way of articles on this type of goat behavior (or maybe I need to use a different search engine now that google is evil?), but I did run across this very interesting article on Goats and Cows, written by Maneka Gandhi and published by an Animal Welfare organization in India. It does talk about the goat sneezes, as well as the tongue waggling, but it also talks about their personalities, and it makes some important connections.
How odd that we value our dogs so much but we do not think twice before eating goats – which are kept like pets all over the world and are as intelligent, loyal and emotional as them. Goats are very often not given credit for being the smart and loving creatures they actually are. Think of them like dogs, except they don’t have the “I must please humans” thing that dogs have.
It is not for nothing that human children are called kids – a term that means baby goat. Baby goats love playing hide and seek. They crawl into little hidey holes and will lie very quiet and jump about squealing when you find them. They “explore their world” with their mouths just like human babies “chewing” and “mouthing” things to learn about them. They love climbing. Family members let their babies jump and climb on them. If you let them climb on you, you are considered family some of the activities enjoyed by kids include galloping, jumping vertically into the air, tossing their heads, and whirling around.
The same article talks about cows, describing their intelligence and personalities. But also:
When you next have a steak or wear new leather shoes, remember that this cow could articulate her pain. We are just not smart enough to understand her voice. John Webster, professor of animal husbandry at Bristol, has just published a book on the topic, Animal Welfare: Limping Towards Eden. “People have assumed that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic,” he says.
[…]
Every time you choose to buy leather or drink milk you kill a gentle intelligent sensitive being. Cows are not just oblivious, cud chewing milk machines – those terms can be more aptly applied to so many humans instead.
Aggie
Aggie herself is an example of both aspects talked about the in article. Her breed is (or was originally) used for both milk and meat. Terry’s intro for Aggie (from when she first arrived, a few months back):
Aggie, our newest rescue, is a young Red short horn calf. She most likely escaped from the livestock auction, because she appeared at a home about a mile from the auction on sale day, as a tiny one month old calf. It seems she followed the railroad tracks to a farm where luckily a kind woman made the efforts to find her a sanctuary home. The local sheriff’s dept. and animal control wanted to take her and sell her for slaughter, but the woman kept her safe for several months until she was tame enough to lead onto a trailer. We picked her up yesterday, and she is very friendly and sweet, she loves to lick people. We can’t wait to introduce her to the other rescued cows, and here she will be able to spend the rest of her life in peace and happiness.
The pig yard was in great shape – we always end up talking about the pig yard conditions, because it makes a huge difference in how hard or easy it is to clean the pig yard. Last week was perfect. And as I scooped, I had a chance to get a picture of the cutest pig nose in the world.
Paige
Paige came with another little piglet, Patty, about 9 months ago, and they both have curly (for pigs) hair for their winter coat! It’s adorable.
Here’s the video from when they first arrived:
Aren’t they cute? They are still the littlest ones at the sanctuary!
Now that I’ve spent some time with Brenda Lee, I notice her right away. It’s funny how that happens – what used to be the general group of “beta barn girls” to me, are now distinct hens who I distinguish easily, though I don’t know their names yet.
And that’s the essence of an awakening to the individuality of others, isn’t it? All it takes is that small starting point, noticing, recognizing, and suddenly a whole new vista opens up. It’s a mirror of the awakening we go through when we realize that we must go vegan.
Julius and Brenda Lee
Spring in the DC area is very pretty (if you don’t have allergies) with lots of flowering plants and trees. Last week was the peak of the Cherry Blossoms, which is a pretty big deal because there are so many of them – something like 3700 just in the Tidal Basin area of DC itself, and many more all over the DC metro area. Most of the ones I see are planted as part of landscaping in people’s yards, or bordering developments. There is only one at the sanctuary (that I have seen – I haven’t walked through the woods to see if there are others!), and it is a wild cherry tree.
I don’t know enough about cherry trees to be able to talk about them in great detail, but I do know that most of the ones I see – the ones that are part of the landscaping – are more like the ones down in the Tidal Basin – the ones gifted by Japan. There are many species of cherry tree, however, and some of them are native to North America, as the wild cherry tree at the sanctuary is.
It just so happened that Dexter was wandering around down near the wild cherry tree, so I wanted to try to get a portrait of him with the blooming cherry tree in the background. It was a marginal success. An overcast day, a horse who wasn’t really with the whole “hold still and pose” program…well, you’ll have to trust my word that the vague fluffy white stuff on the upper left side of the picture is, indeed, the wild cherry tree’s blossoms!
Dexter
As we were leaving after chores, I stopped to take a picture of four recent arrivals – domestic geese whose story I have forgotten for the moment. As I knelt there, this Canadian goose walked up to me. I imagine she was hoping I had something tasty for her, instead of just a big clunky camera!
So cute, with all that grass on her beak!
As many of you might already know, Mary’s beloved Charles died on Friday.
I knew Charles through Mary’s writing, emails and facebook/twitter updates, and also through three visits to their home. My very first memory of Charles is of him rushing us at the door when we came in. Excited, loving, Charles was a presence, and my heart breaks over and over to think of him being gone, so suddenly. My heart breaks for him, for his life cut so short, and for his family who miss him so painfully, and for all of the many friends he made over the years, who feel his loss.
Through just three long-weekend visits, I have so many memories. Many of them, especially from the first visit, are of Charles running. Charles and Violet running together.
Tearing through the beaches, running with joyful exuberance around a baseball field…
…rushing down the hall for treats or a greeting. Of course they are greyhounds, so many of the memories are also of them lounging bonelessly, as greyhounds do with such expertise.
It’s hard to imagine Mary and Dave’s home without there being a Charles there to greet everyone. The hole they feel in their life is huge. Anyone who has experienced loss understands.
I’ve shed many tears this weekend, looking over old pictures, reading Mary and Dave’s words as they struggle to deal with the loss. Hearing, as expected, that Violet’s blood sugar shows the evidence of Violet’s distress, of her grief.
In time the memories trigger more joy than pain, but it’s a painful process, and a long one. For now, there are just tears.
But I didn’t want this to be all about heartbreak and tears. I wanted it to be about the joy that Charles brought to those around him.
When I’d go on walks with Mary and Charles and Violet, we’d often be stopped by the many people in their community who knew and loved Charles. He loved them right back. He’d cross the street to lean on their leg. Of course it was his family he loved best.
My memories aren’t really of Charles alone. It’s of Mary calling “where’s my boyfriend?” and then “Charlesez!” when he’d come trotting to see her. It’s of Charles and Violet getting so excited to get in the car, even if it was just so we could get groceries.
It’s of Dave carving Charles’ name into the sand at the beach.
It’s of a friend of Mary’s coming to visit whenever she could – not, Mary insisted, to see Mary and Dave, but to see Charles and Violet.
I feel like there is so much of Charles to share, but few words that can paint the picture I have in my memories. All I have are a bunch of photographs, a collection of pixels, which I smile at through my tears.
He left too soon, but he will live on in our hearts and our memories. Love you Charles.
A friend and fellow sanctuary volunteer is involved in a fundraiser for the victims of the Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf Coast – human and non-human animals.
There is an upcoming event in Northern Virgina at a local winery, Barrel Oak Winery. You might remember an earlier BOW event last December, in honor of Sheryl’s beloved Mina who passed away in November. That event was to benefit Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary.
I like to support these events, both because Sheryl is a friend and the Gulf Coast is her childhood home, making this catastrophe close to her heart, and also because I love the fact that BOW is so supportive of events like this.
BOW, like most Virginia wineries, creates vegan wines – clay is the fining agent. (There’s certainly plenty of clay around!) They are also a dog-friendly and kid-friendly place, with a gorgeous location and large patio. People come from all over the region to hang out on the patio or inside the main room, usually bringing their own food and busing their own tables.
And on August 15, 2010, they are hosting a fundraiser, driven by Sheryl, in support of the Gulf victims. From 1-5 pm, 10% of every bottle of Bowhaus White sold will go towards the fundraiser. In addition Sheryl is making and bringing delicious vegan treats for donation! Sheryl often brings treats with her to the sanctuary, so I can personally attest to her mad baking skills!
Hope to see you there…
Above is the cover for the 2010 calendar. Click the picture to see a large version in which you can actually read the text.
As usual, it ends up being at the last minute…even though this year I started in August. Lulu has been my preferred print-on-demand calendar provider, and in some ways they still are. However this year I have struggled to deal with some color issues on the printed calendars (which seems to be a Lulu issue, since other print-on-demand services show the colors I expect!). I’ve let the project languish for long periods of time in my frustration.
And so it is that with the end of the year fast approaching, I have certain options to present.
The one that is actually for real done, is through Cafepress. I did a test print of this calendar, and both the print quality and color are excellent. I ordered it on Tuesday night, and it arrived Friday (Premium shipping), which surprised me in how fast it arrived. Cafepress is extremely limited, however. 12 months, and that’s it. I prefer the option of a 13-month calendar so that I can have an “extra” month with info on the sanctuary. For the Cafepress option, the sanctuary-info month is December. So be it. I also have no say in the holidays posted on the calendar.
I have two other test runs of calendars coming in next week through Lulu. One is a B&W calendar, which might or might not be appealing, depending on your taste. The second is my final attempt at jacking with the colors to get a decent print from Lulu. I won’t make the color calendar publicly available until I am convinced that it is worth making public. (For the record, others have said that the previous version’s colors are fine. I, however, wanted to throw up when I saw them. Regardless of my distaste, I did a print run so that we’d have the calendars in time for Poplar Spring’s Open House in October.)
If you have last year’s calendar, you know more or less what you’d be getting, just different pictures, of course. And, based on feedback, I’ve added short bits of text to the pictures so that the basic story of each animal is on the picture. It definitely adds to the advocacy potential, and I’ve had several people make it a point to tell me how much they feel it adds to the calendar to have these stories there.
Which is a damn good thing, because it was more work than you’d imagine to get the stories, do a draft, get feedback, get the alignment right, and on and on. Pain in the ass. But that’s okay, if it’s worth it, which it seems to be so far.
I’m posting this today, even though my preferred options (Lulu) have not been vetted and are not yet public because if anyone was wanting a calendar in time for the upcoming Friday holiday, you can order the Cafepress version by the midnight Sunday (Premium shipping) or noon Monday (1 day shipping), and be guaranteed to receive the calendar in time for Friday.
If anyone prefers the Lulu B&W version, and is willing to take a small risk (in that I haven’t seen my copy yet) and pay expedited shipping by 6pm EST on Monday to get it in time for Friday, let me know and I’ll make that version available.
If you’re like me and are habitually late with gifting deadlines, or if you’re getting it just for yourself / for the end of the year (especially if you have my calendar from last year, and thus have a handy January 2010 month on last year’s calendar), then you might as well wait for a few more days until I make the Lulu calendars public.
As I did last year, I’m not selling these at cost, so that I don’t undercut other calendar makers. However, all profits will be donated to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary.
Thanks for considering purchasing a PSAS calendar, especially given the last minute availability.
For all the reading I do I’ve never been in a book club until now. Maybe it’s the introvert thing! I joined a Vegan Book Club online, though, and I will be interested to see what it is like. It has only just started, so the members are in the process of getting our hands on and reading the first book. First up is Jonathan Foer’s “Eating Animals”, and second will be Gary Francione’s “Intro to Animal Rights”. Books are chosen by member vote, and we’ll be reading about one book per month.
Many of the suggested books are ones I’ve had on my mental “to-read” list for a long time. Like Carol Adams books! I don’t know what we’ll read after “Intro”; that’s yet to be decided on. I do hope that being part of this book club helps motivate me to read some of the books I’ve been meaning to read for ages, as well as some I might not have put on my list, but which will likely be helpful to have read.
“Eating Animals” is one of those books I likely wouldn’t have read on my own. You can read Mary’s review, where she breaks down what the book is and isn’t. It will be frustrating to read, I think, because he doesn’t make the obvious step towards veganism (and you can read Mary’s lament for more on that!), and yet this is a book that is getting a lot of attention, is being read by a lot of people.
This post isn’t about the book, however, because I haven’t read it yet. Mostly I wanted to mention the book club in case any of my friends-who-read-and-also-read-this-blog would be interested but hadn’t heard about it already.
The Harvest Moon Soup I made recently called for white peppercorns. Through luck and a grocery list, I remembered to pick some up while at the grocery store. (Side note: I adore grocery stores that have a bulk section for spices.) Despite a rather eye-opening experience in my past when I learned that not all pepper is created equal, I was still skeptical of whether there was any real need for white peppercorns as opposed to the more common black. It was a light colored soup, and I figured that was the motivation. But it’s sort of silly to me, as far as motivations go. Personally I don’t care if my creamy yellow soup has black flecks.
The real question, to me, is whether the different types of peppercorn make a difference in the taste. The eye-opening peppercorn blend that I found so delicious in my past was a blend that had white, black, green and red, if I remember correctly.
I’m still not really convinced that the white peppercorns make a difference. I decided to do some online research.
It was interesting reading, especially about the history. And I had a little internal chuckle when I read that though Americans are the biggest consumers of pepper in the world, there’s virtually no market for high quality pepper here. It is hard to be surprised.
Spicelines said this:
Unlike black peppercorns which are harvested when the berries are still green, berries for white peppercorns are left on vine to ripen until they turn yellow or red. After the harvest, they are packed into jute bags or wooden barrels, then washed or soaked in cool water to loosen the outer shell. They are rubbed clean and washed again to reveal the pale inner core of the peppercorn, then dried in the sun or in a kiln.
White peppercorns tend to have a sharp. hot flavor and a relatively mild aroma since the outer pericarp where the fragrant compounds are located has been removed. White peppercorns that have not been properly dried and are still damp when packed develop an odor known as “dirty socks.” In the trade this refers to “a moldy, musty flavor” or a “soured aroma.”
And what did people, in general, have to say about the taste difference? Interestingly, people can’t seem to agree whether the white peppercorns are spicier or milder. It is said that there are less “citrusy” notes to the white peppercorn flavor. Citrus? I don’t remember ever tasting citrus with my black peppercorns!
Alas, this might be a question that is simply beyond my taste buds, which never function quite up to spec.
I love bread. I have great memories of my mom baking fresh bread when I was a kid – there is nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked bread!
I often consider getting a bread machine, but my kitchen is so small that I have a hard time justifying taking up room with an appliance dedicated to one task. My condo is so small and lacking in storage, I couldn’t store it elsewhere either. But I might someday be motivated enough to find room for it!
In the meantime, I buy bakery bread at my local organic store.
Bread is one of those amazing things that is just so good in its normal state. Flour, water, yeast, salt. That’s about it. It is beautifully simple. And then the normal packaged bread has to go and ruin it all with a million ingredients that read like a chemistry experiment, and milk (or milk proteins) and honey. So frustrating! Luckily the good bread, the stuff like my mom used to make, is vegan.
No fanfare, just normal.
Wilbur is one of the piglets who arrived with his mom earlier this year. A couple weeks ago when I was at the sanctuary, Terry told me that he had lost the use of his back legs the previous week, and was at the vet. The vet wasn’t giving him a good prognosis. The vet was essentially telling Terry and Dave that there was almost no chance of his recovery. They’d examined some spinal fluid and had found evidence of an inflammation or infection, and thought that it was likely that he’d had an abscess that was pressing on the nerves, causing the loss of the use of his back legs.
Theoretically, they said, treating with antibiotics should take care of this. However the vet said that they’d never had other animals respond to the treatment, hence the extremely poor prognosis for Wilbur. They’d seen it in calves and goats, but they’d never seen it in pigs. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen in pigs, just that it hadn’t happened to a pig who had been brought to the clinic…we all know that few animals, other than companion animals or those deemed monetarily valuable receive medical care when they get sick.
Terry and Dave were determined that Wilbur would have his chance, despite what the vet said. So Wilbur came home, and for the first few days he didn’t move around much at all. He couldn’t sit himself up, wasn’t interested in dragging himself around. After a few days he seemed to show some signs of improvement, and they put him into a sling that is designed to support animals who can’t stand on their own. He loved it. As Dave said, he wanted to do everything at once!
A few more days went by and he showed a little more improvement. A little movement in his legs, he learned how to sit himself up, he started dragging himself all over the portion of the barn he’s staying in now. The meds looked like they were starting to work for him.
When I visited him in the pig barn last weekend, he was sitting up. Soon he dragged himself over to the fence where the rest of the pigs sleep, and Dave and I both noticed that he seemed to be using his back legs to help a little as he scooted across the floor. This was a pretty major thing, considering that one week before he had no movement in his back legs at all. He rolled over for a belly rub from Dave, and a few minutes later I saw his technique for sitting himself up. He props himself up on his front legs, and then scoots the front part of his body around in a semi-circle until his front half is positioned so that he is in a sitting position. Clever boy!
Dave says his attitude is great. He’s smart and he is clearly willing to fight off whatever it is that made him sick to begin with.
It is always heart-breaking when any of the animals get sick. It just seemed that little bit extra unfair for little Wilbur to get sick when he’s so young, and one of just two babies that Polly was able to save when they were struggling to survive in the abusive neglect-filled situation they were living in before they were rescued. The first pig family who arrived at the sanctuary, you can’t help but to want them to have a long life together. Before Wilbur got sick, he and Patrick were almost always together, and very often right near Polly. Very often when pigs arrive at the sanctuary together, they remain life-long friends.
I think Wilbur will pull through. He’s made more progress already than the vet seemed to think he’d possibly make. If he had some nerve damage from the abscess, it is definitely improving. Nerve damage does take time to heal.
This week there was even more progress made. Though he can’t stand up on his own, the farm manager has been able to help him stand by lifting his back end with a towel supporting him under his belly, and once Wilbur is standing and stable, Sandy removes the towel and Wilbur is able to keep standing. This is huge, really. He needs to lean against something – Sandy’s legs, or the wall – but this means that they can help him retain some of his muscle as he recovers. The vet estimated his weight at 200lbs, after all, and he’s still a baby. Today there were a bunch of us at the sanctuary, enough to try to get him into his sling. As it turns out he really didn’t want to go into the sling, but as we tried to help him into it, before it was clear that he just wasn’t interested, he ended up walking around and around the portion of the barn he’s in with Terry and Ryan holding up his back end with a towel under his belly. You could see that he was using his rear legs to a degree, and once I saw him push off from the wall and for one step he was walking completely on his own.
His recovery clearly is not going to be speedy, but it has been steady. It is encouraging. We no longer talk about “if” he recovers, but “when”.
This speaks not only to Wilbur himself, but to the sanctuary. For Terry and Dave, for always having a lot more hope and confidence in their residents than the vets ever seem to have. For Sandy the farm manager, who manages to do amazing things to assist the animals in their recovery. It always seems to me that Terry has hope against all odds; that Dave views the situation pragmatically, always making sure that quality of life remains at the top of the priority list; and that Sandy has a special kind of determination and perseverance which perfectly bridges the Terry and Dave’s outlooks. They are not the only ones on the Poplar Spring team, of course, sanctuaries have to be group efforts.
Wilbur has been spoiled during his convalescence. They’ve been hand-feeding him strawberries, earning a little happy-pig grunt with each one. He wasn’t as interested in belly rubs before as his brother Patrick is, but I’m betting that will change now that he’s getting so used to all kinds of attention.
I see him adapt to his situation and figure out how to work through his challenges, and I am so glad that he was rescued in time to come to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary. Who else would have given him a chance to recover from this illness?
Of course if he hadn’t been rescued, he would have been dead already. If not through neglect, then through slaughter. It’s not like those who profit from death let the pigs live even a year. The equivalent of around a 6 to 8 year old child, that’s it.
A fellow sanctuary volunteer was talking this weekend about a twilight zone episode he’d seen on YouTube recently. The sort of thing that could be very thought-provoking, but perhaps only if you were inclined to think in that direction.
This has been an interesting week in the news. There is the tales of the weird:
Dr. Paul Grabb, a pediatric brain surgeon, said he was surprised when he discovered a small foot growing inside the brain of 3-day-old Sam Esquibel.
“The foot literally popped out of the brain,” Grabb told TheDenverChannel Wednesday.
I looked at the picture linked in the article. It was fascinating, and horrifying, and makes me feel queasy to think about. And while there are occasional cases of what they call a “fetus in fetu”, where a fraternal twin begins to develop inside the other twin, I can’t help but to wonder, when I hear of cases like this, if we are beginning to pay the price of all the poisons dumped into our ecosystem for all these years.
Will, over at Green is the New Red, posted a challenge for his readers to connect the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) to terrorism in less than 6 steps. Real terrorism, that is, not the saving of bunnies or the waving of signs. This was in response to the CCF taking out a huge ad in the NYTimes linking HSUS to “terrorism”. They had to use a diagram in the ad because it was so weird and convoluted, and frankly absurd. They had six steps to form that link, which is why Will’s challenge was for us to connect CCF to real terrorism in less than six steps.
The result? Two steps separating CCF from the funding of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Go read his post, it is eye-opening!
And that leads me to a post on Crisis? What Crisis? regarding Obama’s chosen appointee for the energy secretary.
Scientists and everyone else who value intelligence, accuracy, research, and freedom of thought over dogma are rejoicing over one of PEOTUS Obama’s key appointments. The Tribune yesterday used a brief profile of Steven Chu, the new energy secretary, as a jumping-off point to examine the anti-science, pro-corporate stance the Bush Administration has taken the past eight years.
Chu is a scientist. Imagine that, putting a scientist in a position where scientific knowledge is not only useful but downright necessary.
It remains to be seen what Obama’s presidency will look like, but one thing is for sure – he’s making big changes, away from anti-science positions. He gives a shit about the environment. How far that will get us, time will tell.
And of course the environment is one thing, his attitude towards freedom and activism might be an entirely different topic. He voted for the FISA after all.
An email tonight reminded me that Sea Shepard’s final episode of Whale Wars on Animal Planet airs tonight. Not that I’ve seen any of these episodes myself, but someday perhaps I’ll get them on DVD and remember to watch them. (It is a challenge…for all my focus (haha) on photography, I have a hard time sitting down to watch movies!)
Sea Shepard’s email also provided a great visual to highlight the difference between the tools used by those who have an intent to kill, and those who have an intent to prevent killing. The preventateurs (yes, I made that up) are called terrorists by most governments. Yet who has the deadly weapons? Sea Shepard lays it all out for us.
My friend, Rich, sent this to me earlier today. I have no idea how he stumbled on it, but it seemed the perfect cap to this post!
All proceeds will be donated to the sanctuary.
Coupons: http://www.lulu.com/current_specials?cid=eng_advent_specials_112210
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