Perfect Day Off

That's how I spent my morning. Reclining back in the arms of a lovely tree outstretched over the lake. It was beautiful. I woke up at seven this morning. It seems I just can't sleep in too well here on the farm which is okay. I catch a lot of amazing sights when I'm up this early. The morning started with a bowl of oatmeal and dates (6 days sugar free, thank you very much!) and I hiked my way up to the butte across the street. The scenery once you get to the lake here is unbelievable. I took a different path this time so I was hiking underneath the butte where all the trees are. It was extremely mystical feeling. I half expected Kahlan Amnell to appear in her white confessor dress from "Legend of the Seeker" (I should start that show up again). I spent a good three hours outside this morning, moving from rocks to trees just reading. What a great start to the day.

When I got back I headed to the farm to hang out with the goats and pigs a bit. Some highlights from that adventure:

Six little piggies sleeping on a hill...and Rusty.

Kanbar and her ears.

Charles Suave (I'm giving him that last name because he just is...suave) What a handsome guy!

So that was my lovely day around the farm and beyond. When I got back I did some laundry and hung it out to dry. Seriously, who doesn't want to do laundry when you've got these little babes watching?

Since they trotted up to the fence line the second they saw me hanging laundry, I went and got an apple and carrot for these guys. I mean they left the comfort of the shaded tree to come say hello! <3 Oliver and Elliot. 

Sugar bad, Cows good.

I love how Cinnamon rolls bring people together. Kerrie, had her 39 1/2 birthday today and celebrated by bringing everyone a Cinnaholic Cinnamon roll. Word traveled through the farm phone tree pretty fast and we were down at the shelter in minutes ready to chow down. It was delicious and it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Monday is the official "I'm never eating sugar again day". Seriously. I'm pretty sure that with all the exercise I get out here weight gain SHOULD NOT be an issue. I'm blaming our late night baking parties and lack of self control. Stephanie is joining me in the sugar fast! I will post updates on how it's going.

After work today Shubah, Stephanie and I hit up the pastures with our cameras. The cows were moved to the pond pasture this weekend and it was absolutely gorgeous up there! I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

 Whitaker and Edwin

 Loretta grooming Suzie Moo

 El Nino surveying his pasture

 Melanie checking out the pond

Our awesomely dorky camera timer shot

Couple quick photos

Not a whole lot to report tonight, just wanted to post a couple photos from my walk back to vegan house after close.
 

 

Secret cow love at dusk

Tomorrow I help with santa cruz health care and then head to San Francisco for a couple days!

Pondering in Pastures

The sun came back to the farm today and it was lovely! I had a pretty easy day. I opened, and then barn cleaned, fed out produce, raked, and did waters. After coming back from feeding out the produce I found a little dove near the shelter office that had some sort of injury, we couldn't quite figure out exactly what happened, but we called the wildlife rescue place and he/she will be all fixed up there.

After work Stephanie and I went to spend a little time with the cattle. Everyone looked so relaxed and happy. Made my heart smile :) Here are a few pics from the afternoon:

 

Susie Moo and Loretta

Handsome man Edwin

 Big boy El Nino

Edward: best mohawk on the farm

And then there was Chrissy. She was being absolutely zen out on the hill today. So much so that she got a video out of it. Check it out:

Last Week

I abandoned blogging for awhile, but today I really need to do my taxes so blogging has suddenly become very interesting again.  It was hard to get out of bed this morning because I rolled over and the cattle were grazing right outside my window. Watching them is sometimes like watching reality tv...in a foreign language. I can tell very interesting things are going on in the herd. I can see the cliques, the relationships, the friendships, the drama, but I don't quite understand the dialogue. I wish I could be a cow for a day and get in on their secret life out there in the pasture.

Highlights from the week:

Stephanie and I went to Sophia's class "Why Vegan?" and helped out with the sales of books and cupcakes. It was really interesting to go and see people be so responsive to the talk, people asked great questions and despite knowing a lot of the information I actually learned quite a bit! There is another class next week about how to move towards a vegan diet. I'm not sure if I'll be able to attend this one yet because I might be headed to San Francisco for my two days off in a row. 

We watched the movie Fowl Play last week too which is one I've wanted to see for quite sometime. This documentary focuses on all aspects of the egg industry. There is undercover video that is hard to watch, but it's spread out nicely between rescue stories. Because of this movie I've been doing a little bit of research into hatcheries and egg laying facilities. I found a website of an egg farm who is so confident their practices are "humane" that they have six live cameras you can watch at any time. It just focuses on the birds in the cages. I found it extremely interesting that they are calling themselves a humane facility based only on the livelihood of the hens in the cages.  I really would like them to put a camera in the hatcheries, more specifically on the sexing process of the birds that are born to inhabit those cages. I think anyone who could see the video of male chicks (deemed worthless by the industry) being ground up alive, suffocating to death in huge piles, or being tossed into plastic bags to suffocate would be appalled. Regardless of the treatment these egg laying chickens receive the sad fact of the matter is that male chicks are just a "worthless bi product" to the industry. I was going to post the link to this facilities live cams but I'd rather not accidentally give them free advertisement. Anyways, I just went off on a tangent, check out Fowl Play, it's definitely worth the watch. If you have Netflix it's available as a "watch now" option.

I'll try to keep updating throughout this week. I really need to get some more photos but the weather has been terrible. I even went out and bought myself a pair of rain pants....overall style. Yeah, I've got the farm fashion down. Speaking of bad weather though....even when the weather is awful we always end the day on a good note:

 Shubah took this picture. I didn't even get to see the rainbow! But it was just so gorgeous I had to share!

You Gotta Be....

This morning I opened. *deep and wonderful breath* I LOVE opening. It was such a crisp morning everything smelled dewy and I always enjoy my morning walk to the shelter office when the sun is just coming up. I look behind me to see the cattle already grazing on the hilly pasture and look below to see the geriatric cows, Joni, Neal, and Hank doing the same. Then I try to contain my giddiness. I would have thought, a month into this internship, that the excitement would wear off, but it seems to be growing. When I played derby, after practice I would always say that my lungs felt happy from such a good workout. They really did. They felt filled with fresh oxygen and really strong. I felt my best after practice. Anyways, Farm Sanctuary is to my soul what derby practice was to my lungs. Whoa check that analogy out...haha! So yeah, still loving every day here.

After I opened I helped Leanne wrap Curly's busted horn, one of the sheep from the Iso Santa Cruz herd. I had to pretty much stand with him between my legs and hold his good horn with one hand and his chin with another. He did a really good job :) I really am enjoying any time I get to assist or just watch the caregivers with different treatments.

I then drove the scary van to Chico to drop of fecal samples at the vet and pick up feed. There was also a failed pit bull rescue mission between Orland and Chico. Two of them were running up and down the farm street and I tried to get them but they were scared and ran off. Hope they are okay.  As I was driving into town "You gotta be" by Des'ree came on the radio. Nostalgia! Took me back! That was my first ever cassette tape. I remember cleaning up all my barbies that were scattered around the room to that tune. Let us reminisce:



By the time I got back I had a couple hours of barn cleaning to do and then we had our monthly Chico shopping trip.

I'm going to throw in a few more photos. These are nothing new to people who I'm friends with on facebook, but to all you other readers out there:

 

Me and Coco. This is that goat hug I was talking about in a previous post. YES they hug, and it's the best thing in the whole wide world! Far better than any human hug!

Buddy and Chili playing with my shoe laces. 

 I don't know who this pretty lady is but I think the picture turned out well.

If that isn't just the best smile ever...and that's coming right out of a nap! That's Johnny :)

 Bo looks a little freaked out here! Hahah!

Okay, more photos later. Blogger uploader is being super slow!

Great Photo Day!

 I got some wonderful photos today. After trying to climb the ant ridden oak tree in the sheep pasture I walked over to see Bonnie and Waylan the donkeys and got this awesome picture:

 He reminds me so much of Grandfather Twilight. This is my new favorite angle to take pictures from. Makes the animals look all knowing and epic!

 Neal in the Tunnel Pasture

 Chili. This guy reminds me of the Mystics from The Dark Crystal

Linus, he was following me and Stephanie all through the pasture begging for more love today! What a cutie!

And finally a video of my favorite guy on the farm...Melvin! I put some fitting music to it:

What a great day off! Tomorrow it's back to barn cleaning!

Quick Pics

I was informed this morning by Trisha that my blog needs more photos. So here ya go......

Ramona, the marvelously mischievous pig. Love her.

Daisy. The duck that never wants to get out of the water at close. Love her too.

I believe this is Harrison. I don't know much about this amazing fellow yet, except that he is a sweetheart. (Yeah, he gets two photos)

 

Photo of the Vegan house (left) and the Rescue Barn (right)....and the awesome rolling hills I get to experience every day!

We've been doing a ton of baking:

Tofu Chocolate Mousse. (Ingredients: silken tofu and chocolate chips...that's it!) Looks kind of funny, but tasted amazing!

Chocolate chip cookie covered oreos....whoa.

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cinnamon Frosting

Day off tomorrow and I have lots of plans. Call Trisha, fill out application, photos and videos of the turkey girls, edit video....climb this tree and take pictures of the cattle.

 Should be an amazing day! Let's hope for sun!

Riding with Ramona

Today started out like any other day on the farm. I opened, collected eggs and hard boiled them, prepared produce for the chickens and did some laundry. My last task of the day was to feed out the pig produce to the rescue barn pigs. I toted my buckets full of carrots, celery, cucumbers, and zucchinis up to the barn, dropped them off before entering so I could separate the pigs without them freaking out about their food arriving, and put Kiwi and Fergus into their stall. I prepared their bowls and fed them. Next were Ramona, Lassen, and Matilda. Feeding them is always a bit trickier. Balancing three bowls while trying to maneuver a latched gate and three hungry pigs is no easy feat. I made it through the gate and ran out to the pasture so the pigs would follow. They all chowed down. Sweet, I thought, mission accomplished. Not quite. While I wasn't looking Ramona finished her produce and had pushed open the unlatched gate. I threw down the empty feed bowls and bolted towards the back side of the barn and saw her trotting merrily towards the vegan house. When she noticed that I'd come up behind her she picked up her pace. I needed to get ahead of her to cut her off. Somehow I managed to jump in front of her path. We stared each other down, and I could see her little mind working. You couldn't be farther from the truth if you ever thought pigs were stupid. And Ramona is not only extremely intelligent, she is also quite stubborn. She was bound and determined to continue on the path she started on whether I was in front of her or not.  She eyed me a bit longer, gave me what I now know was a mischievous grin and ran towards me. Before I knew what had happened Ramona shoved her snout between my legs and lifted me up off the ground and onto her back and kept running. It was almost as if she were saying "Hop on! We are going for a ride!" I held on for dear freakin' life! I couldn't help but laugh a little bit as this was happening because I'm sure it looked hilarious! After a few seconds Ramona paused, lowered her snout and let me off. I ran into the vegan house, grabbed and apple and coaxed her back into the barn. What a ride. Sure made for an interesting day! I must say, I never would have imagined, in all the times I looked at Ramona's sponsor picture on my fridge, that one day I'd be given a piggie back ride by her!

Anyways, I also wanted to show off these pictures of me feeding produce to the chickens. Stephanie was out and about taking photos and was able to get some pretty good candid ones :)

Don't think I even need to say it, but I'm loving every day here more and more!