The Coalition Of Animals

Hello all you beautiful animals, if you have been reading my weblog for the last few weeks you will already know all of this information but I thought it would be good to look back and recap for anyone who is new to our story here on the Farmyard. If you are new, welcome!!

I will not start at the beginning because that was so long ago and if you really want to start at the beginning you can click on the words that say "my story starts here" over on the right hand side of the page and please do not mind my terrible grammar and spelling and punctuation back at the beginning because I did not know the things then that I know now about such things.

I recently gave a speech to all the farmyard animals that is being called the stump speech because I gave it on the old tree stump behind the barn and in that speech I told all the animals about how much meat people eat and how many pigs and lambs and chickens and turkeys get eaten every year.

Barry, the barn cat who I thought was my friend, did not like the attention I was receiving for my ideas and he has been sulking around the yard and finding an audience with the chickens who believe every word he says and follow him around as if they were in some sort of cult and if you read about the scary thing I saw a couple of days ago I am sorry in advance for any nightmares you might have. Some scary things happening in that part of the yard for sure but I mostly wanted to recap the advancement we have made with the rest of the animals.

We have officially formed the Coalition Of Animals and we are counting people as animals here in our name and here is our Mission Statement:

We value all life. Every animal has both a role to play in the planet's ecosystem and a right to fight for their self-preservation. There are alternatives to eating meat and our mission is to educate people about these alternatives with the goal being to reduce the amount of meat eaten per person, year on year, for the next five years.

Our key messages are as follows:

All life is valued.

We are all connected.

Balance is best.

And our symbol for the coalition is this:

Anytime I see this symbol I know our messages are being heard and we are being supported.

Carmel, Petunia, Jasmine and I have been talking to all of the animals on the farmyard and we are here to deliver a message to all of the people in the world about our mission, as a united farmyard front.

Too many animals are getting eaten every year.

There are alternatives to eating meat and we want to educate people about them.

We understand that there will always be people who eat meat, we just want them to eat less of it.

If you are interested in supporting the COA please connect with me on twitter or in the comments or by email as we would love to welcome you into the coalition.

Senseless

I was going to write something very different tonight but I just do not have it in me to write much of anything.

Instead tonight I have been reading and reading and reading on the Internet and I feel like my eyes are red and that the sun will come up very soon and I am inside the farmhouse so much later than I usually am because I can just not believe what I am reading.

I just do not understand what the fascination is with guns when they can do so much harm? I will be the first to admit I do not know a lot about the subject but from everything I have learned this far tonight if there is anything people can do to make guns harder to get, should people not do it if it can save lives? The lives of children.

I am just so sad tonight. I do not have any more words.

The Most Disturbing Thing I Have Ever Seen

This afternoon, after the man and the woman did their lunchtime feeds, Barry called all the chickens into the barn and they marched all in the same line into the barn and we watched them all go in and I wanted so very badly to see what was happening so I went after them and peeked around the corner of the door and I saw all 15 chickens standing in a line in front of Barry.

Barry had a small cup next to him and in that cup there was a red liquid and if I had to guess I would yes for sure guess that the red liquid was blood.

And Barry took his paw and dipped into the cup as each chicken stepped towards him and he batted the tops of their heads with it and left a red mark on the top of their head and then they fell back in line.

When all of them had been turned into redheads he dipped his paw in again and tapped his own forehead and left a red streak that went over his right eye and it looked like a scar and also looked very scary and intimidating. Barry told them that he was one of them and while the red would eventually wash away in the rain or flake off when it had dried they all knew that in their hearts they would be redheads together forever.

Then the chickens, without being prompted, all said "Woohoo" at the same time but they did not cheer it and there was no joy, they just said it like you would just say any word and the whole thing was very very creepy and they sounded almost proud and every one of them, to the chicken, stood as tall as they could when they said it.

I ran back to my shack before they could turn around to see me but this was definitely the most disturbing thing I have ever seen and I think I may have nightmares about it tonight.

They Found Rex

One of the chickens found a small pile of bones and some feathers in the barn in a corner underneath some hay.

The chicken, Sally, ran into the farmyard screaming that they had found Rex, or what remained of him.

Barry came out and told everyone that he had seen a hawk a few days before that had been eyeing the chicken coop and he had been watching our for it to keep them all protected but the hawk must have gotten past him.

Sally and the other chickens thanked Barry for protecting them and told him it was not his fault and that they were sad that Rex had been eaten by a hawk.

I know what you are thinking.

I am thinking the exact same thing.

Rex

Rex is missing.

Now if I am being honest, I did not know that one of the chickens was even named Rex because I do get them all confused with each other, but from what I can understand from Carmel today he was the one chicken who was not happy with the way things were going over at the coop. He had reached out to Carmel just yesterday about what we were doing to follow up on our stump speech and he said he did not like marching and he even said that he was starting not to believe some of the things that Barry was telling them.

Carmel asked him for an example and he said that Barry was telling them that animals actually ate more people every year than people ate animals.

And today he is missing and I do not want to start any rumours but I also have not seen or heard from Barry at all today and so I will leave that for you to conclude your own conclusions.

Step Five

Today the Farmyard Four met as a foursome for the first time in many many days and we were able to compare so many notes and it was good to see that almost every animal we have talked to has started to form the same opinions as us.

With the exception of the chickens who we have hardly had any connection with - although there is one chicken who seems to want to speak and is having a hard time finding a way to break away from the group - we have spoken with pretty much every animal on the farm and we can conclude the following as a summary of beliefs from the farmyard.

Too many animals are getting eaten every year.

There have to be other alternatives and we need to learn more about them so that we can help people eat less meat.

We understand that people will always eat meat, we just want them to eat less of it.

We are going to let our ideas sink in for a few days and then I will be returning to twitter to let all my people friends know how things are going on the farmyard.

This is Step Five of the plan and I have to say I am very pleased with how everything has come about in the last few weeks and I cannot think of anything right now that can get in the way of the COA.

One Tired Turkey

The last few days have been an absolute blur and the Farmyard is a buzz with the work that the COA is doing.

I am still staying off twitter during my days because I do not want to be locked away in my shack when I should be out there and communicating our message to every animal I can.

I just wanted to pop on here tonight to say thank you for reading and that I hope you are all doing well wherever you are. 💓

The COA Is Taking Off

The Farmyard Four have been a busy bunch the last two days and we have hardly met at all just as a foursome because we have had so many animals coming to us asking what the symbol they have been seeing means.

Instead of having a big group meeting and drawing attention on the farm we have committed to all the animals to talk to them one on one about things so all of the animals who stopped by our lunch and learn yesterday we told them we would find them and come and talk to them and the same thing today and I think by now we have spoken with almost every animal on the farm!

When we are meeting with them we have all agreed to stick to the same message so that we are a unified front.

We ask them if they remember what was said at the big stump speech and we talk to them about their thoughts of how many animals get eaten every year. We hear them out and make them feel heard even if they are getting some facts wrong or are questioning some of the facts.

We tell them we hear them and we tell them we understand how they are feeling.

Then we tell them that what we believe, and what the circles represent, is that:

All life is valued.

We are all connected.

Balance is best.

That's what the circles mean.

We then ask them if they can name the circles themselves and sometimes they can and sometimes they cannot but that is why we have to keep repeating this message and that is the end of the conversation for the moment.

We do not want to overburden them with any information but we just want to introduce our ideas and we know we will have more opportunities to talk with them anytime they want in the future.

We have not had ANY animal come to us yet with a fight or an argument or a disagreement.

This is all going so very, very well.

Happiness Is

Happiness is being heard, really heard, when you have something important to say.

Today was very very good and I am a glowing bird and I only came in here very quickly to tell those of you who visit me every day that the response to our new symbol and our new message was so very well received and I am so tired because I talked more today than I have ever talked so I am going to go to bed now and get a good night's sleep because I feel like tomorrow will be much of the same.

I will fill you in on all the details tomorrow night.

Good night all you beautiful people, all you friendly animals.

Opening Up The Circle

Today instead of meeting as the Farmyard Four each of us went to different parts of the farmyard and we scratched our new symbol into the dirt and Petunia even took some mud from her pen and found a small corner on the side of the barn where she plastered the mud onto it in the shape of our very same symbol.

We agreed that anytime one of the animals asked us what we were doing or what the symbol meant we would invite them to come and join us anytime they saw us meeting together after lunch and we could talk to them about it.

My friends, so many animals asked me about this today and I think the others had the same level of interest and we wills ee what happens at tomorrow's lunch and learn but I am feeling very positive about it all!

Step Three

I am so proud of Carmel.

After we met yesterday we decided that the three messages we came up with the day before were perfect as they were and the next step was to draw a symbol to represent them and to represent the COA and Carmel came to us today with a symbol that we all immediately loved.

I was going to describe it to you but I also love google and I was able to find something very similar to what she drew and I will put that picture here now.

We wanted to have something that represented connections and equality and balance and I think these three circles all connected with another circle do that perfectly.

All life is valued.

We are all connected.

Balance is best.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the official symbol and messages of the COA.

Anywhere I see this symbol I know that our message is being heard and supported. 💓

Step Two

We are all so happy with our Mission Statement and we think it is a very clear thing to communicate and we also think the Coalition of Animals is a good name. If we can communicate this well enough to people I think they might not mind also being called animals and it can help them identify with us a little better, or at least that is my sincere hope.

Step Two is to make all of our messaging simple and easy to repeat and here is what we came up with this afternoon and I would be interested to know your thoughts.

We made everything into three simple messages:

All life is valued.

We are all connected.

Balance is best.

There were many other ideas that were discussed and Jasmine was the one to keep reminding us that we had to keep things short and simple and she was so right and she kept us very much on track.

Oh boy, can you believe there was once a time I did not like her? That is pretty crazy, right?

Our Mission Statement

We met again today and we have decided that while we are The Farmyard Four we need to create a group or an entity that is more inclusive of others and so we came up with the name today of the Coalition Of Animals or the COA for short and we want to remind people that they too are animals and can be a part of this coalition.

We also revised what I wrote down the other day nd here I present to you, all you beautiful animals, our Mission Statement for the COA:

We value all life. Every animal has both a role to play in the planet's ecosystem and a right to fight for their self-preservation. There are alternatives to eating meat and our mission is to educate people about these alternatives with the goal being to reduce the amount of meat eaten per person, year on year, for the next five years.

If you want to be a part of the COA please connect with me on my twitter or comment here or send me an email because we would love to have you as a part of our group.

Woohoo!

Today was an excellent day.

The Farmyard Four loved my plan and we have all even agreed on Step One and our main goal and Carmel said she had heard of something called a Mission Statement and so we talked back and forth about what our Mission Statement should be and we came up with this:

We value all life. We understand that this means that some living creatures eat other living creatures to survive and we know that all animals everywhere must do their best to balance their own self-preservation along with fulfilling their role in the ecosystem of the planet. We want to address the issue of balance and educate the people of the world of the current imbalance many animals face due to the meat-eating habits that have evolved over time. We aim to seek out alternatives and present and educate people about them with the goal of reducing the amount of meat eaten per person on an annual basis.

I do not think I have ever written anything so smart and I was taking notes on my cellphone while Petunia was talking because oh boy she really got on a roll with our ideas and I think we really have something here.

We have all agreed to sleep on this for a couple of days and revisit it before we move to Step Two but I have to say that right now I am very excited by all of this and I think they are too because at the end of the meeting the four of us sent out a big Woohoo! of our own and I am pretty sure Barry could hear us all the way from inside the barn.

The Plan

This is the plan I want to present to the Farmyard Four tomorrow and I told them today that I was working on our Next Steps together and yes I have used capital letters for a reason because that is how important these Next Steps are.

How To Be Organized In Five Easy Steps

Step One: Identify our main goal and I think our main goal should be to educate people about the unsustainability of eating so much meat in their diets. I do not think our goal should be to eliminate meat eating altogether because I do not think we will ever be able to achieve that but I do think we can make an impact. This goal needs to be decided by the Farmyard Four before we can move to Step Two.

Step Two: Make our messaging simple and easy to understand and repeat.

In this step we need to take all the confusing numbers out of my stump speech and make our message one that can easily be repeated around the farmyard.

Step Three: Create a symbol for our message that we easily scratch in the dirt or find ways to have it around the farmyard so that when people see our symbol they are reminded of our simple message because we need to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it so that they remember it.

Step Four: We need to make ourselves available to talk to any of the animals on the farm who want to talk and so we should open up our Lunch and Learn to whoever wants to attend and we make sure to always meet regularly so that the animals can rely on us and know that we are animals of our words and yes that means if it is raining.

Step Five: We need to collect the opinions of the animals and share them with the people of the Internet and fortunately I already have this weblog and my twitter as a platform for us to do this but maybe there are other ways to share this message as well?

I must say I am feeling much better than I was yesterday about all of this and even though we have not even officially started Step One yet of the Next Steps just even seeing it all written down like this has given me some confidence.

If Barry and the chickens can be organized, we need to be even more organized and I think we already are with having this plan all written down because, to the best of my knowledge, I do not believe the chickens are educated enough to read.

Being Organized

Today I saw something in the farmyard that has caused me much stress and I could not even talk about it with Jasmine or Carmel or Petunia and I have been staying in my shack all afternoon because I do not know what to do with the thoughts that are in my head but then, I guess that is exactly what a weblog is for, right?

Today I saw Barry leading the chickens in a little marching parade around the chicken coop and they went around and around in circles around the coop and every time they passed the little ramp that is the entrance to the coop they would yell a big "Woohoo" and they looked like they were truly enjoying themselves and that is only one part of the thing that caused me stress but I must say it was unsettling to see them all so organized and not just running around like they usually do.

The other part of the thing that stressed me out was that I was standing near the older cows and I do not think they thought I could hear them talking but I could and one of the cows said to the other that the chickens seemed happier than usual and the other cow responded by saying that while the chickens were dumb maybe they had a good idea in not thinking about the harsh realities of the world that everyone on the farm has been talking about since my stump speech.

That is where the conversation ended thank goodness but if the cows are starting to think that Barry and the chickens are doing something right how long before the other animals start thinking the same thing and then how will the Farmyard Four ever get our message out properly? If we cannot even be united as a farmyard how will the humans out there ever care enough to help us change the world?

I think I am going to take a break from twitter for a while because I want to put all of my focus here on the farmyard and once we have our own heads organized then I can start to reach out more to my people friends with a unified message from the farmyard.

I think we need to be more organized and I think I need to make a plan for this to suggest to the Farmyard Four because I have a terrible feeling in my gullet that this is only the beginning of something that could go very very wrong.