The creatures in the following drama are, from top to bottom:
Policeman
Rambo (foreground) and Hannah (rear)
Winston
Hazel

Heat.

It's the perfect word to describe a pig's ovulation. When a female pig ovulates, she is all raging hormone, all sex...all heat.

Petunia the pig used to follow male staff around, insistently presenting her rear to them. Millie the 100-pound potbelly, meanwhile, insists on mounting Policeman, the old, gentle, 1,000 pound farm pig, who wants nothing more on a sunny day than to plop his pink mass into the shavings pile just outside the barn door and lie motionless, soaking up the warmth of the day. He's years (and a neutering) past thinking about sex. So Millie, unsatisfied, returns to her stall, where she plans her next assault on the next unwitting male.

Now there's little Hazel's first heat.

She's mounting Policeman, then picking a fight through the fence with Piggerty, a female pig, foaming at the mouth and chomping her jaws in that "I'm going to KICK YOUR ASS" way that's SO uniquely porcine. A moment later, in a frenzy, she whips around and is mounting Winston, the black potbelly, and the two of them are a two-pig cha-cha line moving through the barn aisle, Hazel's front legs straddling Winston's rear end and her tiny back legs running to keep up as Winston, completely unfazed, goes about his business--searching for food--that's the only business a pig ever has.

Well, other than this....

Hazel mounts Hannah the sheep, lying in the aisle, who simply stands and walks away, turns to look at Hazel with a "What are you, crazy?" expression in her eyes. Norma Jean the turkey is diagonally across the aisle, pecking at treats on the hayroom floor.

Hazel j-walks--j-TROTS, actually--toward the turkey but out of nowhere Rambo appears, ever the guardian of all our fragile ones, blocking Hazel's best efforts to molest the gentle bird. He, too, is gentle but insistent, and a mere lowering of his head a few times, presenting those massive horns, is enough to convince Hazel to look elsewhere for satisfaction.

We call Mark Rosenberg to schedule Hazel's spay surgery.

...sex is on the mind of every animal on the place.

Mind you, making an exception for the humans, we have but a single set of testicles on the entire place. Those testicles belong to Noah, a 20-year-old stallion whose wonderful progress you can track in my blog. Minimal risks notwithstanding, they will soon be removed. A rescue organization simply cannot have an animal in its midst capable of reproduction.

Yet, despite our nearly "testosterone-free" status, all I see is sex today. It happens every spring.

Buddy the blind horse featured on the jacket of my book, Where the Blind Horse Sings, is a gelding. Yet you'd never have known it today, watching him, stone blind, mounting his female pasturemates Abby and Henny.

Nor would you have guessed that Rudy the steer was a STEER--a neutered bull--and not a cohones-intact bull as he mounted not only his companion Helen, the lovely blind Hereford cow, but also ANDY, the male HORSE.

I walked to the barn laughing, shaking my head, having just witnessed a neutered male cow mounting a neutered male horse. I was stopped in my tracks by Hazel, our 50-pound adolescent female potbelly pig, doing her damndest to "connect," so to speak, with Policeman, our 1,000-pound neutered male farm pig, interested only in sunning himself on a warm spring afternoon.

Aaah, love is in the air....

Animal care director Walt Batycki and I have had our struggles. He rightly claims that I don't listen to him--instead I come armed with my solution to a problem, which may not be feasible for a whole host of reasons. I rightly claim that he gets a little too worked up about things that really aren't such a big deal if one would only approach them with equanimity.

We love each other; we regularly say so. We struggle constantly. But then there are the moments that, in an instant, wash our issues away. There's just been one.

Murphy and I were driving the farm: surveying the land, the fencing, checking in with the outside animals. As I drove past our beautiful duck pond, I spotted what looked like a duck head floating on the water. Oh no. One of our most vulnerable ducks, a Pekin female named Shirley who's routinely harassed by aggressive males, was caught in the fencing that divides the "duck safe" portion of the pond from the "no swim zone." Her leg was caught in wire well below the surface. Literally only her head was visible as she struggled; the rest of her body was completely submerged.

I gunned the accelerator, leapt from the car, pounded on Walt's door.

"WALT WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!!" I called as I entered, quickly explaining the situation to Walt, who was sound asleep, exhausted from a long week.

"Let me throw some clothes on," he answered.

I gunned the car backward to the tool shed to retrieve wire cutters, then sped to the pond, visualizing myself waist deep in 40-degree water.

When I got there, no more than 60 seconds after knocking on Walt's door, Walt was already waist-deep in the pond, Shirley in hand. An instand later, Walt was pale and shivering, and Shirley was sailing through the air into her warm, dry shelter.

"I love you, Walt," I said to the man running to his hot shower.

"I know," he said.

This entry is for our volunteers -- Crazy Rabbit Man is on the prowl.

A few weeks ago I received a call from an agitated gentleman who, speaking in a fast, slurred monotone, said he "wanted to come get some rabbits."

I explained that my line was for emergencies only and that he should go on line to complete an application. "There's a whole process," I explained. "You can't just come pick up animals."

"Need rabbits, gotta have some rabbits," he continued repetitively, talking over my words.

That same night I was on my way to hear the wonderful "veggie vet" Holly Cheever speak about her 25 years advocating for animal rights. Her talk was preceded by a vegan potluck presented by Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society. As I headed out to the event, in drove Crazy Rabbit Man.

He's in his 50s; drives a new silver 4-door vehicle. Perhaps a hybrid?

"May I help you?" I asked pointedly as I got out of my car, which I'd angled in front of him so that he couldn't go any further.

"Where are the rabbits? Rabbits gotta I need where are rabbits the rabbits?"

"Sir, we're closed, and you must leave. I told you on the phone that you can't simply come get rabbits. If you don't leave rioght now, I'm going to call the police."

Rabbit man mumbled on about red tape, turned around and left. I stayed at the top of the driveway for 15 minutes, suspecting he would return. He didn't.

About a week ago, Crazy Rabbit Man appeared in the barn, demanding rabbits in his rapid-fire monotone. He was told to leave.

He'll be back. Just a request to all volunteers: if you're the first to see him, don't waste time looking for staff if we're not in the barn. His plan is clearly to grab some rabbits and run. Call the police, and get Crazy Rabbit Man's license plate number.

Thanks to the incredible energy of over forty volunteers (the forecast kept a few people away), our Spring Clean Up, held this past weekend, was an amazing success. The regulars at Catskill Animal Sanctuary are in fact a little humbled by how much got done!!

Three new shelters were stained, the intrepid Judy Gelardi worked on her own to clean up our gigantic perennial garden (not a one of us can distinguish between a weed and a flower), and all our container gardens (large oak barrels) and one large raised bed were transformed by Kathryn (sorry Kathryn if I botched the spelling) Sebastian's green thumb.

The one project I feared might be too daunting was reclaiming a large portion of pasture choked by climbing vines, burdock, sumac and other invasive species. But armed with everything from chain saws and razor-sharp machetes (generously provided by volunteers Vinny and Diann DiBlanda) to garden rakes and pruning shears, two teams charged into the tangle, and in a few hours transformed most of it to its original meadow-like beauty. Take a look:

So, to EJ, Allie, John (Sebastian--yes....as in JOHN SEBASTIAN!!), Kathryn, Mi-Lyn, Sarah, Vinny, Dianna, John, Joanne, Julie, Michelle, Paul, Kelly, Bernie, Anna, Paloma, Mark, Adena and the Bard gang, to all the rest whose names I can't conjure up, and to the dozens of you who come here week after week with open hearts and strong hands:

thanks for sharing the love. Yes, I believe in magic.

What does one do when she has a blind duck, a one-legged duck, and a coupla girl ducks who get mobbed by randy drakes?

If she's at Catskill Animal Sanctuary, she makes a special needs duck pond!!

What does one do when she has a blind duck, a one-legged duck, and a coupla girl ducks who get mobbed by randy drakes?

If she's at Catskill Animal Sanctuary, she makes a special needs duck pond!!

They're so much like us...and here's more evidence. Enjoy...

They're so much like us...and here's more evidence. Enjoy...