Sept. 10, 2008– Melancholy
A deep melancholy is affecting me. It shouldn’t be. Sun is shining on the corn fields around me, I finally baked an edible loaf of bread yesterday, the animals are flourishing… and yet, some sadness is pressing against my chest, as heavy as any bale of hay I’ve thrown today. Maybe it’s just that time of year. I try and put my finger on it… is it the upcoming trip to the battery farm, where we will be allowed to save some egg-laying hens? Tens of thousands of chickens, (who have spent their only year of life in small cages, never seeing sunlight or scratching the earth), are set to die. We will be allowed to rescue some of the hens, which is a wonderful thing, but funds are so limited for us, I will only be able to take a few. I do not look forward to leaving the rest behind, watch them being thrown by their legs and wings into a truck destined for the slaughter house.
Is it the revelation that Rusty the piglet was castrated without anaesthetic? What a dunce I am–I should have know that; I knew they lopped off their tails and cut their ears with no freezing or pain killers, but somehow I assumed humans would at least offer the courtesy of some painkillers when neutering an animal. Yesterday, I was informed otherwise. I can’t imagine taking my dog into the vet clinic and letting him do what someone has done to my pig.
Is it that more and more I feel I need to justify why I have this farm and why I am doing everything that I do. When you work round the clock caring for animals, finding the strength to constantly stand up for your convictions is draining. I’ve gotten used to odd looks when I wheel my bins through the grocery store to get the old produce they are throwing out. It is an enormous blessing to have all kinds of vegetables and fruits for the animals, veggies a little too old for the great produce section at the store. It saves me money on feed bills but is also very healthy for the animals. Somehow I’ve managed to keep my head held high while dumpster-diving for rotten cantelopes, and actually, some of the young people who work at the store have become very helpful offering up what they are tossing away.
Admittedly, the meat jokes people sometimes make about our animals are getting to me. I tried to be a good sport, the first few times people licked their lips and joked about how good the pigs are looking. But the joke has gone stale. It bothers me, like a rock in my shoe, growing more and more irritating each time I notice it, and I swear the next time someone makes a comment like that I will snap, and tell them I think their dog looks tasty and let’s toss her on the table for dinner!
I guess all vegetarians must put up with the very odd question, “do you get enough protein?” I’ve been putting up with that for eighteen years. It has never crossed my mind to ask a meat-eater (and 99% of my family and friends do eat meat) if they are getting enough vitamin C! And I guess everyone who rescues animals has to endure the comments people make, about how it is a waste of time, how it will break you financially, how it is plain wrong to have a farm that produces nothing and makes no money.
Perhaps it is all of these reasons, combined with the winding down of the good weather, and the difficult winter months that are looming, that are making me feel a bit down.
My biggest inspiration as a child was Dian Fossey, the woman who studied mountain gorillas in Rwanda. On days I am feeling particularly fragile, and utterly misunderstood, I imagine she must have felt the same way, probably much more often than I. No one believed in her, no one seemed to feel the exceptional primates were worth saving. But she fought to save them anyhow. You do what you believe is right, and carry on, despite what others think.
A kind reader left a wonderful comment on yesterday’s post, and it has had an impact on me–what a legacy her grandmother left her. I hope I am leaving my own legacy of compassion to my children, and to others who visit the farm and get to know the characters here, like Tallulah and Rusty and Macbeth. I hope that twenty years after I’m gone, they will treat an animal with kindness because they saw someone else do it, because they realize that all life is valuable, and because they have learned that once you get to know a living creature and recognize its distinct personality, you cannot possibly treat that animal with cruelty and violence. I hope that, despite everyone finding me a bit eccentric (read: crazy) at the moment, years from now they will understand what it is that I’ve chosen to do with my life.