The Fox Hunt

This past weekend was quite a weekend as the man and the woman who run the farm learned about the fox and oh boy did this place go on high alert.

There was not a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on the farmyard this weekend as the man and some of his friends were always about and they held guns in their hands and I think they wanted to shoot the fox.

The friends have been staying in the farmhouse so I have been unable to come in here and write on my weblog at night and charge the battery on my cellphone. They are gone now and they have laid some traps outside of the fences and the fox is still at large.

While the fox does present a threat to us, one of the main values of the COA has been very hard to maintain: All life is valued.

It is a difficult thing I must say - and I have just learned this word and that word is reconcile - it is a difficult thing to reconcile that the fox has a right to live and play out its part in the ecosystem of the planet but that we also have a right to live and play out our part and what it comes down to is that we just have to live and if necessary we have to fight.

I do not mean we have to be violent because sometimes to fight is to ensure your own safety and sometimes that means keeping yourself safe and secure and out of the actual physical part of the fight. To survive is simply winning the fight against death.

I did manage to speak with Carmel today after all the men had gone and the traps were set and we spoke for the first time in a few days and she believes that whatever is meant to happen will happen but I cannot just sit back and let my fate be decided by that and I told her so and she said to me that I was maybe not understanding her because she thinks that, while there is an element of fate to our lives we cannot ignore the opportunities that fate gives us to influence our own outcomes.

The circumstances have been determined, she said, but not the outcomes.

It sounds very smart but I have been thinking on it a lot and are not the circumstances the result of another series of outcomes? I do not think I have the language yet to debate her properly on this because she is a very smart little lamb but I am curious as to what you believe?

Are you able to influence the outcome of the events before you or is any action you take already part of some bigger design?

I have learned another word just now and that word is flummoxed and I think that is what I am at this point in time and I'm hoping you can help unflummox me, which I do not think is a word because there is a red line under it when I type but I will use it anyway because I think you know what I mean.

"Fake Facts"

Today we have been fighting what Carmel has called a misinformation campaign by Barry as he has been telling all the animals that we do not believe that the fox exists but yet we expect everyone to believe all the "fake facts" - and I am using the quotation marks here because that is what he is calling them even though that is not what they are - that we tell them about how many animals get eaten every year.

He is saying that the Coalition of Animals does not care for our immediate well being and only for an agenda that we cannot even prove is real and I am very frustrated because I am the only animal with access to the internet and people other than the man and the woman and some animals, like the goats and the chickens, are not bright enough to even understand what an internet could even be or mean.

I saw one of our symbols, caked with mud on the back side of the barn, changed today to make it look like the head of a chicken as they added a beak and eyes to it.

I worry that the animals are getting distracted by the fox and are not taking us as seriously anymore.

Of course we know the fox exists as even I saw it myself yesterday but Barry has a good way of talking to the other animals sometimes and I worry that they are starting to believe him.

These are not easy days on the farm my friends.

Stoking Fear

Today we all saw it. We all saw the fox. I saw the fox.

I had so many animals in the yard come up to tell me that they saw the fox and what should we do about the fox and what if the fox gets into the farmyard? I didn't have any answers, all I could do was try to calm them down. I asked if they had ever seen a fox in the farmyard before and they said no but then they said they had never seen a fox outside the farmyard before either.

Then, Barry happened.

Barry was suddenly everywhere today, walking past the animals and saying things like, "Maybe we have more problems to worry about here than people eating animals in other places?" Petunia heard him say exactly that and she told him to just hush up and she told me that he laughed at her.

After spending days in the chicken coop he was finally back out amongst all of us and all he could do was make everyone more afraid of the fox and basically tell the animals that the COA was wasting our time and that the real threats were at our front door.

As the sun was setting tonight the usual quiet and calm that falls around us was not here to be found as animals have been tittering and chirping and braying their anxiety.

Even as I came into the farmhouse tonight the goats were still restless.

I do not have a good feeling about all of this.

Seeing Red

So the whole farmyard was a little nervous today because we had our first actual for real confirmed siting of the rumored red fox and it came from the goats who are all the way on the other side of the big fence in their own area and we don't see them very often but today Jasmine was coming back from a morning run in the field and she stopped to say hello to them and they told her all about the red fox and they were nervous and very anxious about the red fox.

We talked about the fox today at our lunch and learn and we concluded that there is not much we can do about a fox out there and we just have to believe that our fence is good enough to keep the fox out because from what we know a fox likes to eat some of the animals on our side of the fence.

I could sense how nervous some of the animals were as I was making my afternoon rounds and I tried to put their minds at ease and talk to them about things like vegan pad Thai which looks like a delicious dish for people to eat instead of having a hamburger made from cows but the animals were more concerned about the fox to even really listen to me.

Hopefully we don't see the fox again but I have a funny feeling in the bottom of my middle that we might.

Crispy Fried Falafel

Hello dear readers and friendly animals!

I am just going to leave this little link right here for any vegetarian friends who are interested in a delicious looking recipe.

https://cookieandkate.com/crispy-falafel-recipe/

PETA

In my research I have found the following item from a website called PETA and these are the most popular recipes for vegans in 2019 which is a little while ago I know but does good food ever really go out of style and the answer to that is no, Goebbels, it does not.

Here is the link:

https://www.peta.org/living/food/most-popular-vegan-recipes-2019/

I have no idea what a churro is but oh boy have I added that to my list of food to try, yes I have!

And they even have a recipe called vegan fried chicken which is not actually made of chicken and I think to myself, man are people ever smart to make something like that.

To any new vegan friends I have reading this, what are your favorite vegan foods?

Oh, and also, a lot of banging inside the chicken coop the last few days and I still do not know what Barry is doing in there. We may need to put together another spy mission to find out.

Oh, and also also (haha) Esther has officially become a part of our main group coordinating the COA and I will tell you that Carmel is a very happy little lamb about that.

That is all for tonight my friends. Thank you as always for visiting me!

Vegans - My New Friends

So I had heard of vegetarians before and I understood vegetarians immediately because I feel like it is right there in the name that they eat vegetables and so vegetarians were new friends of mine as soon as I realized they do not eat meet.

When Esther mentioned the word vegan though I did not know what to think and my search last night and my friends on twitter have let me know that vegans also do not eat anything that comes from an animal which is like one more level than a vegetarian so I am here today to say that if you are vegan you are also immediately my friend.

I think what we need to do in the COA is to understand the diets and see what we can do to promote a vegan diet and make it sound tasty and before you even ask I did a search on google and yes you can make a vegan version of tzatziki. Yum!

In other news there have been rumors of a red fox sneaking around outside of the big fence and it has created quite a stir although I do not know of anyone who has seen the fox, just those animals who have heard that someone else heard that someone else had seen the fox so I am having trouble getting to the root of this rumor tree as a result but I will keep you, dear reader and friend, posted.

What Is Barry Building?

I am spending most of my time on the computer tonight researching alternative diets but I realized that I haven't mentioned Barry much over the past little while and the reason for that is because he has been pretty much an unseen cat around the farmyard and we have hardly seen or heard from him at all. The chickens have even been quiet and seeming to mind their own business and they have been less annoying.

Today was the first activity we have seen and we all saw Barry bringing one piece of wood after the other into the chicken coop and he brought three pieces in total and had a very hard time dragging them across the yard and through the gate and up the little ramp and into the coop but he eventually finished what he was doing and none of us can think of what the reason for these pieces of wood could be.

I will tell you more if there is more to tell for sure.

Also, Esther is lovely and joined our lunch and learn today and had said that she had heard the woman say the word vegan before and that maybe that was like vegetarian so I will search for what vegan is tonight as well.

Goodnight and I hope you are all happy and snuggled in your beds if you are reading this tonight.

Esther

So today Carmel approached the sheep she has been having a crush on whose name is Esther and I am so proud of her for doing so even though I do not think she got out of it what she wanted.

Yesterday after lunch Carmel went to approach her but there were too many other sheep around so she got very nervous and came back to us and even though we said she should just go and ask to talk to her alone she was so scared and we did not want to push her on this at all.

Today was a different story though as Esther was all by herself and Carmel went up to her and we were watching from the other side of the yard and we could not hear her but she told us afterwards what she had said and what she had said was this:

"Hi Esther, do you have a minute because there is something I have been meaning to talk to you about?"

And Esther said: "Of course Carmel, what's up?"

"I've been... feeling something for a while and I don't know if it is something you might be looking for but I have been really enjoying your company and your support of the COA and I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out together sometime, just the two of us."

"Oh..."

"I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, it's just that I... kind of... like... you?"

And when she was telling us this Petunia jumped in and said "You asked it like a question?" and Carmel smiled a bashful smile and nodded.

"Oh Carmel," Esther said, "I think you are so smart and special and I love what you are doing but I'm sorry if I've done anything to lead you on but I, well, I like rams."

And at this point when Petunia and I were nodding in understanding and saying things like "Oh Carmel", Jasmine said she didn't understand what the problem was and that's when Carmel said "Well she likes Rams and I like ewes," and Jasmine said "Well, we like you too, but what does that mean? Is she jealous of us?" and that's when we had to explain Carmel's sexuality to Jasmine and sometimes I forget because she is so big, that she really is only just over eight months old and when she understood she nodded and said things like "Oh Carmel" with us.

But Carmel wasn't sad because Esther said she would love to hang out more and be friends and Carmel was happy with that and again I am just so proud of her.

I didn't think about this before our conversations today but it must be so hard for Carmel to have come forward like that because I think we just assume that most animals like the gender opposite to them and to break through and have the conversation about who you are really are attracted to is a very tricky conversation to have but it is an important one to have so that love can be given the space it needs to grow.

Taking The Message To The People

Hello my beautiful animal friends and people who are animal friends!

I know I have not written on this weblog much just in the last week and that is for two reasons. The first reason is that I am one tired turkey because I have been so busy on the farm each and every day talking to so many animals that I need my sleep and it has been a lot to think about sneaking into the farmhouse so late at night and use the computer here and the second reason is that I have been doing a lot more on Twitter.

I have been making some new friends on Twitter and trying to spread the message of the Coalition of Animals and so that is where my main focus has been lately.

I am only going to be here for a minute now too but I wanted to tell you that Carmel has a secret crush on another sheep and I have been coaching her with some help from all you beautiful animals as to how she can approach her crush and I think tomorrow might just be the day she does it and I will tell you everything as it happens and maybe it will be on Twitter before this weblog but eek I am so excited for her.

I want the other animals and in particular this one other sheep to know how special she is just like I know how special she is. 💓