Mabel, Day 1 (submitted by Jean Rhode)

Today, we took in one of the saddest animals I’ve ever seen. Her name is Mabel and she’s one of two potbelly pigs surrendered by a woman who lost her husband. She and a friend drove up in a pick-up truck with the pigs inside. Somehow, they managed to lift the pigs off the truck. Not an easy task, as both of them, Ozzie and Mabel, are morbidly obese. We cannot see Mabel’s eyes through grossly inflated cheeks. Her belly drags on the ground when she walks, but she’s not walking right now. She’s in a corner lying on hay. Ozzie came up to me to say hi, but Mabel retreats from my hand. She wouldn’t eat her dinner, placed right under her nose. For a pig not to eat—something is seriously wrong.

We don’t know her story—how old she is, what she’s gone through, how she is with people. Lorraine, Walt, Megan, Kathy, Julie, Alex and I individually stop by her stall to welcome to the mound of potbelly girl on the pile of fresh hay in the dark corner of the stall.

This will be her first night at the Sanctuary as she gets used to the smells and sounds of the barn settling into the evening. Before Lorraine leaves for the night, she tells Mabel that we love her, that this has been a hard day with traveling and coming to a new place, but things will get better.

Mabel is a wheezing, unmoving mound of potbelly in the hay.

He doesn't know it yet, but Zen Sunshine is going to the big city.

As I write in Where the Blind Horse Sings, we don't believe in carting around animals for show, and are therefore opposed to roadside petting zoos and other businesses that use animals for profit. When people want to connect with farm animals and understand the lessons they teach, they must generally come to Catskill Animal Sanctuary.

The ebullient rooster Paulie, a former cockfighter from Brooklyn, was an exception to the "no travel" rule. As social an animal as I ever met, Paulie sought out human companionship. Beyond that, however, Paulie loved--indeed DEMANDED--car rides! He'd screech and crow and hop up and down outside my car door until I picked him up and placed him in the passenger seat, where it took him no more than five minutes to fall asleep. Paulie visited restaurants, schools, Chambers of Commerce, radio stations....even Jivamukti Yoga Studio in Union Square. Five full chapters of Blind Horse describe this remarkable animal, his transformation, and the lifelong lessons he shared with those who knew him.

and now it's Zen's turn.

Like most young goats, Zen can't get enough of human contact. Found in the streets of Manhattan (where many of our animals, having escaped from a slaughterhouse-bound truck, or out a slaughterhouse door, or been found in boxes left in city streets, or in mailboxes or cemeteries or dumpsters) Zen has taken beautifully, of course, to farm life. (Like other goats, Zen has an optimistic world view, assuming that humans are all sources of love, food, or fun. Around CAS, of course, his view is an accurate one.)

So when I pulled into the parking lot last week and Zen came bounding into my lap as soon as I opened the car door....well, then, it wasn't too difficult to see that we had another traveller on our hands. I've taken him out for a few test runs...he quickly relaxes in his large airy carrier.

On Wednesday night, then, Zen will take his first big trip. We're going to Manhattan--to Rapture, a gay cafe and book shop, no less, (200 Avenue A between 13th and 14th; 8:30 pm) where he's sure to get into plenty of mischief. It will be a far cry from his previous experience of wandering the mean city streets. He'll be lavished with affection, which is nearly all he wants from us humans anyway, having been separated from his mother as a tiny thing. And we'll decide whether we truly have in Zen another traveling ambassador: another one who can look humans in the eyes and say, "See--I'm really not so very different from you, after all..."

(and oh, yeah, I'll be reading from my book, which will be available for purchase)

I don't see a single leaf waving. It's probably ninety degrees at Catskill Animal Sanctuary; the air is thick and still as death. But I don't turn on my air conditioner, for quite simply, it uses too much electricity. Global warming. The earth is pleading for our help, so I'm making concessions where I can. Like turning the hot water heater on only 30 minutes before my shower. Like pooling my errands so I drive less. Like going without air conditioning when I want it. Lessen the footprint. I'm trying.

The animals, after all, don't have air conditioning. They have shade, sure, but on days like this they'd love to be standing right in front of that machine that magically takes hot air and turns it frigid. (For all I understand about how air conditioning works, it might as well be created by David Copperfield or Penn and Teller.)

Today, we all sweat. I sweat at my computer, shedding first my shorts and then my shirt as I hope against hope that no stranger appears in my doorway (as they often do.) Quelle suprise! I hear myself rationalizing why a "director" is working in her underwear...

Down at the barn, meanwhile, the pigs loll in the mudbaths we make for them under the willow trees, and grunt with glee when, as they leave their pasture to come to the barn for nighttime, Lorraine sprays each of them with cool water from the hose.

The sheep, recently shorn but nonetheless trapped inside their dense coats, pant heavily. We wonder if we'll need to hose them down, too. The horses and cows find the shade and stay still; the poor broiler hens struggle.

Chickens, you see, aren't supposed to weigh 15 pounds. But those that miraculously escape slaughter DO weigh that much, sometimes more. Agribusiness has created Frankenbirds--chickens that grow at freakishly fast rates (greater profits for the producer) yet have such high death rates that agribusiness itself has created the term "flip-over syndrome" because it finds so many young chickens lying on their backs, feet pointed skyward, dead from violent heart attacks because their hearts simply can't take the rapid growth.

Yet we continue to eat them. Tortured birds, caged pigs, terrorized cows. Under agribusiness, the tiniest concessions to their well-being are long gone. These animals are commodities, period. It doesn't matter that they suffer mightily. It doesn't matter that they are so very much like us, or that pain is pain and suffering is suffering whether it is inflicted to a human or a dog or a chicken. It feels the same, no matter what one's species.

So just like the 500-pound man is having a harder time on this hot humid day than I am, so are our poor chickens. They're gasping for air.

Zen and I are pooped after our night on the town.

The little white goat rescued from slaughter a few months ago settled easily into our journey to Manhattan yesterday. Though I stuffed a large airy carrier full of hay, he settled so easily that before we reached New Paltz I pulled over and opened his door so he could walk around the back of my Subaru wagon. He did move around a little--mostly, though, he stayed nestled in his hay, munching either that or the carrots I brought along. And he napped. A lot.

I parked on 7th Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, where virtually every passerby stopped to smile at my little pal as he nibbled at the grass planted around a brave tree sprouting up from the concrete.

"What's he doing in the city?" everyone asked. Dogs stared in disbelief. They didn't bark...just stared as if they didn't quite trust their eyesight. "Hey Zim...." I saw a little Chihuahua glance at his pal Babwe..."are you seeing what I'm seeing?" And city folk clustered around Zen Sunshine, who greeted everyone with the same eagerness he displays at Catskill Animal Sanctuary.

My book reading was not held at Rapture, but instead was held around the corner at Otto's, where Daniel (of dlist.com fame and the night's organizer) dj'd in the front while Jean Rhode, Zen, and I greeted guests in a quiet, enclosed back space. I needn't have been concerned about Zen, who spent the evening challenging new human friends to King of the Mountain (the 6" stage), nibbling people's fingers and sleeves, and gratefully accepting water and treats of lettuce, carrot, and apple.

I read a chapter from Where the Blind Horse Sings about Paulie, the former Brooklyn cockfighting rooster, and one about Rambo, the violent sheep turned barn guard and greeter.
I spoke of the devastating cruelty and impact of factory farming, and of the lessons learned from formerly abused animals. People asked questions and bought books.

Mostly, though, they admired our little spokesgoat, our little ambassador Zen.