This week we had the chance to go to a farm sanctuary where they rescue farm animals from awful situations and let them live out their lives in peaceful surroundings. As we walked through, our tour guide told us the individual story of each animal--the terrible circumstances it had come from and how it had overcome and recovered there at the farm. She even told us about the little personality quirks each of them had, their gentle nature, and how they were now serving to help educate people. Animals have incredible resilience and, when given the right kind of care, just blossom.
Even the turkeys and the chickens, who you wouldn't traditionally think of as friendly, just walked right up to us and let us pet them and just hung out with us.
The pigs loved having their bellies rubbed and even kicked their back legs like a dog does during a belly rub!

This cow was so gentle and sweet--I thought her coloring was just beautiful too.
This is a dog they are fostering until they can find a home. He was rescued from Mexico and only has three legs, but he is the sweetest little dog. He played with Melia for about a half hour while we were waiting for the tour. He was very playful and got around just fine.

I have recently looked into the subject of farm animals and the conditions in most of our country's large scale farming facilities and I've found it really just deplorable. I think it would sicken most people. But most of us just go to the grocery store, buy our meat and don't take thought for where it comes from. There are no laws protecting farm animals because they are thought of only as commodities instead of actual living beings who deserve respect and proper care. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian. I'm not saying that we should be. I'm saying that things need to change. Some simple things that we do are buy organic, free range meat where the conditions the animals live in are better. We are also cutting back on the amount of meat and animal products we eat. One thing I'm definitely saying is that laws need to be changed to make conditions better for the animals that are spending their lives suffering through terrible conditions and ultimately giving their lives for our use. Farm Sanctuary and many volunteers have worked tirelessly and have gotten Proposition 2 on the ballot. It's an effort to ban some of the most cruel confinement systems used by the large-scale farming facilities. Here's basically what it will do:

If voters vote yes on November 4th 2008 California will no longer enable the use of:

• Veal crates - narrow wooden enclosures, just 2 feet wide, which prevent calves from turning around, lying down easily and even walking for the extent of their short lives.
• Gestation crates - 2-by-7 feet metal enclosures that confine 400-pound breeding sows (pigs used to supply the pork industry with piglets) for most of their four to five year lives. Prevented from taking more than a step forward or backward, and unable to turn around, sows will live their lives in these crates and are freed only briefly to be moved to similarly restrictive farrowing crates to give birth.
• Battery cages - small wire cages in which several hens are packed together so tightly that they are unable to even stretch their wings. Never touching the ground, the lifetime living space allotted to each hen is less a sheet of copy paper. Battery cages are used to confine 95 percent of all laying hens in the U.S. and allow giant egg farms to pack hundreds of thousands of hens into a single shed.

All these confinement systems are so cruel that they are already banned throughout much of Europe. In the U.S., a growing number of restaurants, supermarkets and even producers have pledged to stop using them, based on their inherent cruelty.

I think Ghandi said it best: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Embarrassing Moment

So last Monday, Bo went to play softball with all of the missionaries on their day off. I took Melia down there to watch Daddy play. After the game was over, all of the missionaries got together for a group picture and Bo and I were taking the pictures for them--about 15 different cameras for about 25 guys. Then comes the moment--Melia falls and starts crying, I bend down to pick her up and I hear my pants rip. Where you see my hand is the back of my pants where there is a rip about a foot long. So I play it off, continue to take pictures in front of these 25 guys and carefully try to keep my back facing everybody, which was kind of hard once we were done taking pictures and everyone was walking around and Melia was running off to the playground. Luckily, I was able to get Melia and get back to the car with only the dad on the playground seeing the back of me. They weren't even tight pants. Go figure.

The Battle Wages On...

Bo's second attempt at ridding the backyard of his nemesis consisted of pouring a bucket of soapy water down the hole where they have their nest. Unfortunately, after he started pouring the water, he got freaked out and just threw the bucket and ran back inside the house. Luckily, he didn't bring any of them inside with him this time. But the next morning they did not seem to be affected.
His third attempt delivered somewhat better results. He took 2 cans of bug killer and shot them down the hole and at the same time flooded it with water for like 4 minutes. The next day the nest was still there and functioning but there were actually some dead yellow jackets as well. I think his confidence is growing. Yellow Jackets: 4, Bo: 1/2

Battle with the Yellow Jackets

Ok, so a few days ago I was sitting here at the computer while Bo was outside working in the yard. All of a sudden, I see Bo running past the window without his shirt on, flailing about. I wondered what the heck was going on. Then he runs in the house bringing with him a swarm of Yellow Jackets (a kind of wasp that is known for it's aggressiveness, as we found out that night). Why did he think it was a good idea to bring them all IN the house? I don't know. Anyway, he runs back out of the house, leaving 3 of them inside to attack me. I got stung on the top of the head (they have the ability to sting over and over and bite at the same time) before they flew back outside. Finally, Bo had gotten them off of him and came back inside in time to kill one that was still inside. I asked him what happened and he said he was just raking leaves and accidentally raked over their hive in the ground. They all attacked him and he had them all over his shirt, which was why he was now shirtless. He ran away at full speed and they stayed right with him. He said he thought about jumping in our neighbor's pond for a second--I asked him why he didn't just jump in our pond in the back yard and he said it was too nasty. Go figure. So instead, he just panicked and ran inside the house. Later, he decided to go back out to get his shirt. Turns out it still had 3 yellow jackets on it. So again, he ran back inside the house bringing with him 1 yellow jacket. As I ran in the bedroom to get away, I saw Bo grab Melia's bib as his weapon of choice to fight off the yellow jacket. When it was all clear, we looked up how to treat the stings and ended up sitting on the couch in pain for hours with a paste of baking soda and water smeared all over our heads. We looked pretty pathetic. This is what we get for moving up here to the wild! Yesterday, Bo bought some stuff at home depot to kill them and went out last night to do it--thus the outfit in the picture. Well, today he checked the hive and he said they were all still alive and well as if nothing had happened. At that point, I told him we'd better call in someone to take care of it, but of course, he doesn't want to do that. Why? He said it's a pride thing--he wants to be the one to finish his battle with the yellow jackets. He was already concocting in his head what hoses, tubes, pulley systems, etc. he'll need for Plan B, so this may be an on going project for a while. So far it's Yellow Jackets: 2, Bo: 0.

Paradise: Things that Make You Go Hmmm

*Yes, this is actually the name of a place of business. I don't think it means the same thing in Northern CA as it does in So Cal.
*The local video store does not alphabetize their movies.
*We saw a couch in the back of a pick up truck that actually had seat belts and kids riding in it.
*The radio station Jack FM is called Bob FM up here.
*Our neighbors were out in their backyard the other day (which we can see from our place). One guy was in a gorilla suit dancing around while the other video taped him.
*There is a Mexican restaurant named "Meehos". Yes, it's spelled phonetically.

Disclaimer: None of these things are bad, just different. :)

The Fires are Back!

I woke up this morning at 8am and had to double check what time it was because it looked dark outside. Turns out there's a new fire on the other side of Paradise and the smoke and ash were so thick that everything looked dark. Bo's aunt and uncle and their 5 kids, two dogs, 2 birds, 1 fish and a plethora of plants have been evacuated and are staying with us tonight. The more the merrier, huh? Anyway, all of them, plus Bo's mom, grandma and aunt are leaving on a vacation tomorrow, so we'll stay here and hold down the fort with all of the animals, his uncle's boat, motor home, quad, etc. We're just hoping we don't have to evacuate too while they're gone! Life is just full of interesting experiences.

7 Years! We made it!

Yesterday was Bo and I's 7 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long! Bo's mom has been up here visiting for the past two weeks, so she watched Melia for us and Bo and I got to spend the day together. We went to downtown Chico and shopped around at the cool little shops there and had lunch at a place called Plutos. Good food, but mucho garlic. Later in the day, we went to the lake here in Paradise. It's pretty, but you're not allowed to swim in it or anything. Wierd. We ended our day by eating Bo's favorite food, Round Table Pizza, and relaxing at home. Oh yeah! We also rode around on his uncle's quad for a little while. Overall, a good day. :)