WHAT DO YOU EAT?

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The cooks

"What do you eat?"

I have been asked this a thousand times in my decades of being vegan....

One visit to Adena and Kate's in Boulder and this question would be happily answered for anyone!

It has been a week of eating bliss......

This is the vegan conversion house.  I wish every human could come experience this food.

Black bean soup with corn and cilantro....yummmmmmmmmmm

First Ever Plant Peace Daily Contest!

The first person to identify this object correctly will win a free Plant Peace Daily Book and the bumper sticker of your choice!

2 views of the same object:

Move to Bolivia to be a Locavore?

  




Sign on a building in Boulder...

JC and I watched the film FUEL and it only makes me more aware of how I take part in the crazy consumption of non-renewables.  I am right now, at this moment, sitting in a big chunk of aluminum flying from Tucson to Boulder after taking a shuttle from Patagonia to Tucson.  Why?  Because I want to see my friends there and I found a great deal on the flight.  200 years ago I would have written long letters to my friends and they would have gotten them a month later and then responded and I would most likely have most of my dearest friends and family within walking distance.  I would not have expected to see my friends on a regular basis who live hundreds of miles away. 

I know that my choice to be vegan saves a boatload of oil.  Animal agriculture uses more petroleum than all forms of transportation combined in the world.  Also, I am not a shopper and rarely buy anything new.  My idea of a gift for our home is the beautiful rocks and sticks and bones I find while hiking.  So, I may not be the world’s biggest petroleum consumer…..but I am still aware of how spoiled I am…and I could sure make my footprint smaller.  

We have a home on wheels.  We get to park it wherever we please.  I would guess that we don’t drive even a fraction of the miles that most commuters do, but the fact that we can even have this mobile lifestyle depends on fuel. 

And, it’s not just that part of our lifestyle that contributes to the USA’s over the top consumption….

Our wonderful daily green smoothie drink has ginger and cinnamon from who knows where and bananas from Mexico.  It is only by chance that the kale, lemons, oranges, carrots, and apples in it are from the local organic farms in the area where we are parked right now.  There are places we have lived where the sources for our smoothie ingredients make it a virtual United Nations in a blender.

I have to admit it….I am just another fossil fuel dependent human.

I would like to simplify life down to the point where I am not so dependent on fossil fuels.  But, as I look around at my life, it seems almost impossible. First I would have to shed the things that are wants rather than needs….that means most of what I have and do.  Could I really do without my sun-dried organic Bolivian olives?  Probably.  Or I guess we could move to Bolivia so then I would be eating locally. The olives would be the easiest to let go of (I know this is hard to believe for those of you who have seen me go through a pint of them in less than 5 minutes) ….Choices choices.
It's all easier when I remember that those really simple pleasures are what bring me the most contentment....

JC making saurkraut with local organic veggies.

     This photo is mother and calf together.......as it should be.....

I came home from the library where I wrote the Bovines and Bees blog today and found that there were about 75 more cattle who were rounded up today. It has gone from bad to worse.

This is a group that is mostly moms and kids. They are separated in pens where they can see each other, but can’t get to each other.

Now, what was bellowing has turned into the cow equivalent of screaming and moaning. The mom’s are freaking out and their screams fill the air and our home. Some of them are howling like coyotes. The babies are panicked and we can hear their cries in response to the mothers. It is unbearable.

The neighbor at the bottom of the hill told me that the first year she lived here she cried through the whole round-up season. Now, she tries to just tune it out. I am just trying to breath. I cannot get my breath past my chest into my belly.

Bean, our dog, is upset by the sound of the mother’s screams and can’t relax. She is staring toward the herd with big nervous eyes. It may not be her canine language, but she understands panic and fear.

I want to just be like Byron Katie who can “love what is”. I went to BK’s 10 day school three times and I still cannot “love what is” in all situations. I feel edgy and nauseous. The sound of the moms is the same sound that, years ago, made me go next door to my landlord’s dairy farm and find the male calves being loaded on a semi. The mom’s were pressed against the barbed wire screaming just like these moms are. Some had blood coming down their chest fur and all of them had their mouths wide open bellowing for their babies. It was that witnessing that made me give up dairy. As I listen to the moms tonight, the visuals of the dairy farm mothers from years ago is like a painful movie running in my mind…

The same people, who LOVE their dogs and would be completely heartbroken if their canine “children” were taken from them, cannot understand that this is a bond between an actual mother and her birth child. These same people will often have no problem sitting down to a hamburger. It is this disconnect that perpetuates this kind of needless abuse and violence.

There is no difference between the mother/child bonds in these cattle than there is between a human mother and her child. The same pain is felt when chimpanzees are taken from their mothers for research or zoos or the exotic pet trade. Elephants feel the same pain when their babies are taken for circuses, zoos or for work in the lumber industry. The pain of that broken bond is the same in all beings.

Tomorrow some of the cattle will be taken out in trailers. Some will be returned to their grazing land.

I saw a story in the news about a trailer hauling 160 cows in Washington State. The driver changed lanes and crashed into another vehicle and the trailer was smashed and on its side. It was a two level trailer. Only 90 of the 160 cows survived. Those who survived had to be taken from the scene in volunteer trailers after saws cut the trailer apart to get to them. The photos of the survivors are intense. Bodies covered in blood and manure and bulging eyes filled with panic and fear.

I know I am rambling here. I am still, after all these years, shocked by how disconnected we humans are. I just spent the weekend at a family reunion with people who love their dogs with all their heart and would do anything for them…and, these same individuals will eat other beings who are capable of the same bonds, suffering, joy, etc.

I don’t want to be one of those people who only socialize with other vegans. And I completely understand people who make that choice. There is nothing like being with someone who understands the despair of witnessing the abuse we inflict on other species or the joy of doing something to speak up for the voiceless ones. I have this in my partner, JC and in my dearest friends and extended vegan/animal rights community.

It is ironic that I am looking up right now at the side of our stove where we have the bumper sticker: PEACE BEGINS IN THE KITCHEN, GO VEGAN….and at the same time I am listening to the abuse of these cows.

Tonight, we will watch a dvd with the volume turned up high to drown out the mother’s moans, screams and bellowing and the babies’ panicked cries. And when the film is over, I will focus on the community of caring people who are working tirelessly, all over the world everyday to shine some light in the dark corners.

Bovines and Bees

 Why do beautiful places often come with extreme animal abuse? We keep parking in incredible spots, and often, part of the package is hunting, animal agriculture or other animal abuse.

Right now we are in the gorgeous desert and mountains of southern Arizona. We are on the edge of the national forest. The national forest and all private land in the area is range for cattle. If you have private land and do not want cattle grazing on it, you have to fence them out. Cattle grazing has changed the landscape here. The plants and soil all showing the abuse of large herds of domestic cattle who are owned by people.

On the land to the east of us is a ranch. It is round-up time. This means that cowboys have gone out on horseback and rounded up the free-roaming cattle and have them in pens so close to us that we can hear their bellowing 24/7. I sat outside the pens today and watched the trapped cattle trying to get back to the cattle they had been grazing with and all of them wanting out of the pens. Because these cattle are being sold off to slaughter or other ranches, they are divided by new owner. This means that mothers and babies are separated..... and friends, those who spent the last 5 months wandering these mountains side by side, are no longer together. Their bellowing is not random bellowing. They have gone from freedom to captivity. They have gone from choosing their food and friends to having no choice.

I watched one mother staring at a youngster three pens away. The youngster was staring back. When the mother called out, the youngster answered. While watching them, I thought about the story I read a few days ago by a writer who is a holocaust survivor. He tells of getting off the train at the camp and being lined up with all the men. His mother was lined up with the women. He watched her line move forward and as he and his mother looked in each others eyes, they had no idea that would be the last time they would see each other.


The pens are slowly being emptied by pick-up trucks coming in empty with empty trailers, loading the cattle and then driving out. I have watched about a dozen leave in the last few days. For those who are full grown and heading to slaughter, the next part of their journey will be the worst. They are heading for a place where the air is filled with panic and the floors are covered in blood.

I heard one of the cowboys screaming at the cattle to get in the trailer. He was calling them lots of names, including “stupid”. We think that cattle or other animals are “stupid” when they do not willingly walk toward a violent situation. The cows and pigs who have escaped from stockyards and slaughterhouses by leaping over 5-6 foot fences and walls were not stupid. No one had to tell them in their own language that they needed to get out of there. The cows who are trying to avoid getting in those trailers are far from stupid. They are no more stupid than any human trying to avoid pain and death.
 

Our sweet gentle and beautiful neighbors to the west:

                              
I find it amazing that any of these beings are able to eek out a living on this land....where do the cattle find water in a place of no year round lakes or rivers?  These two are in a large field, but they have most likely been out on the open range until recently.  They slowly suck up the water from the tank with a look of total bliss on their faces. 
How do they find food on land that seems to barely sustain dry brush?

                             

 

                              


  

Even the smallest creatures want to live. It is so dry where we are that the animals have learned to seek out any moisture. Our first morning here, I turned on the outside shower and within a few minutes bees, crickets, ants, birds and other life appeared all around me. The bees will not leave. There is a constant hummmmmmm around our camper as they enjoy the party. I asked the neighbor why the bees are swarmed around one of our screen doors. She asked if we had fruit inside. Sure enough, they are smart enough to know that there is a giant bowl of fruit just inside that door. I am too dumb to have figured out they wanted the fruit. When the occasional bee gets into our home, our dog Bean starts chasing them and trying to eat them. They do not just dumbly sit there and let Bean chow down. They fly for their lives. They hide in the perfect places that she cannot get to. They want to live. Like all of us…..from the tiniest insect to the biggest mammal.
 

Another Wavelength

One definition of the word invention is: the creation of something new.  Ask me what I think is one of the greatest inventions and I am most likely going to say “libraries”.  I love libraries.  I have a huge stack of library cards for every place I have been from Minnesota to Stockholm.  Drop me in a place for more than a day and I will end up with a library card.  My library card collection is even bigger than my co-op membership card collection.  I also join every co-op I live near for more than a week. 

Libraries are filled with history, fantasy, new ideas, films, recipes, music, art and shelves of what is possible and what has been.  And, all of this is available to anyone of any age, background, race, gender, and economic bracket. 

JC brought home a dvd called Unchained Memories from the library yesterday.  It was a 2002 documentary about former slaves in the USA who were interviewed in the late 1930’s as part of the Federal Writers’ Project.  They wrote memoirs in the exact words of the ex-slaves.  More than two thousand former slaves were interviewed.  For the documentary, HBO chose some of the interviews and had actors emulate the accent and personalities and read the interviews. 

The dvd was eye opening, even for someone like me who grew up in a very aware civil rights family.

What really struck me was how recent these interviews were.  It made this documentary a mix of horrifying and hopeful.  Incredible that people were sold to the highest bidder and taken from their families and given no choices.  Intense to hear about people being whipped horizontally and vertically across their backs so the skin would come right off in chunks and then have salt rubbed into the wounds.  These beatings could happen to a hungry adult or child stealing part of a biscuit.  Children and adults were forced to watch

the beatings. 

I have been working as a voice for the voiceless for so many years.  I am working with the hope that people, who so recently were able to commit these kinds of atrocities legally in the USA, will widen their vision to include all beings, human and non-human.  It is asking a lot.  Not that long ago, we could not even see that a human of another race was not property and had feelings.   Now I am asking the human race to see non-human beings as other than property.  A big leap.  But, the most hopeful for me is that in just a few generations we have gone from thinking that having human slaves was just fine to being shocked by what we Americans were capable of.  And that said, there are currently 27 million human slaves around the world.  Slavery is not just part of history.  

But, most people, if asked if slavery is morally or ethically ok, would say “no”. Most people in the USA look back at what we did to Africans who were stolen from their land and people and sold into bondage, as something that we, as a nation, are ashamed of.

I look forward to the day when we look back at this time and feel the same about our current treatment of other species.  It is going to happen….it is just a matter of time.

I love this by Ellie Maldonado in NY City:

In order to believe we are entitled to domesticate, exploit, and kill, we need to believe the others are inferior to us, and that they can’t think, feel, or experience emotions.  Now we know better.  No wonder this myth is losing believers, and that so many of us include other animals in our moral code.

And, as Lee Hall so beautifully put in her book On Their Own Terms:

Each person plays a political role every day.  We can conform to the scheme of things, and that’s one role.  Alternatively, we can become conscious of the messages that run through our heads, adjust them, tune our thoughts to another wavelength, conceive other possibilities.  We can then organize our lives, and perhaps whole communities, around a key idea.  This takes stamina.  Whenever we get together and dare to undo old hierarchies, we can anticipate vehement attacks that mischaracterize our efforts.

We may be very close to the tipping point….the place where a minority of the population influence the entire culture to choose compassion for all beings.

I want to hold this vision.  The vision that this tipping point could be tomorrow….

OY

Silver City New Mexico is impossible to describe accurately.  Mix cowboys and hunters with artists and wealthy Californians and co-op loving organic baby boomers….stir in many toothless smokers living on the street and a strong GLBT community and you still don’t have the whole picture.  Plop all this on the edge of the beautiful Gila Wilderness and you may think you get the picture, but without a few years of exploring it is impossible.

Snapshots of this past week:

 Jumping Man flying in front of our home on wheels.....

We kept bumping into Paul the Jumping Man.  His card says Wonderer.  He is jumping all over the USA… taking photos for a sport trampoline company.  He keeps the trampoline on top of his car.  He also photographs the most beautiful parts of the country.  When asked any philosophically challenging questions, his answer is “It is all light and angles”.  He jumped into our life. 

In our almost two months here I haven’t seen anyone in the endless wild space trails outside our door.  We hike for hours everyday and ….no one.  This week for the first time I bumped into a young woman coming toward me on the trail. She was hiking in black lingerie and bouncing along to iPod entertainment…  her arms and legs were solidly tattooed.  Her un-neutered pit bull was with her and she told me his name was Luger.  What could be more charming than a dog named after a gun with balls hanging down to his knees and a fat studded leather collar? If she had hesitated long enough I would have gotten a chance to give her my “neuter your dog” routine. 

And the best day for me, since we hit the road, was a few days ago hiking into this canyon...

and along the Gila River for hours….stopping to swim in the clear cold river….then hiking straight up the canyon in the afternoon…finding the rock that has OY imbedded in it….. 

and ending the day at the hot springs in water so hot it makes you dizzy.  

What is the word for gigantic gratitude?  Oy.