Curious Little Sally

I have to be quick because now that I have Sally staying in my shack she is always asking questions. She noticed that I left last night for a while and asked me where I had gone and I said I liked to walk up and around the farmhouse at night and take in the cool air but I do not yet trust her enough to tell her about my weblog.

She has also asked me questions about my connection to the bigger outside world and I know she has heard rumors of my cellphone and of something called twitter but I have been avoiding answering in detail because neither of those things is a real thing for me now.

I will be staying inside my shack each night for the next few nights now just so she does not get suspicious so if you visit my weblog and do not see any update for a little while that is exactly why.

Goodnight beautiful animals. This turkey loves you all.

Barry is Gone

Overnight, he left.

Confirmed by Klaus and his network of mice, Barry was seen jumping from the main gate and heading down the roadway that leads away from the farm in the direction that trucks come and go from.

He did not say goodbye to the chickens who refuse to believe he has really gone.

Sally has been in my shack all day as she does not feel safe with the other chickens right now. I told her I would look after her.

The Committee will not meet again but they have put out the official word that Barry was solely responsible for the attack on the farmyard. The idea that a farmyard animal could willfully orchestrate such a monstrous event is hard to believe but fortunately the facts are right there in front of us all.

I do not believe Barry will come back. It is him and a few chickens against the rest of the farm.

Maybe, just maybe, we can have a bit of peace around here for a bit.

Good night my beautiful friends. I think I may sleep better tonight than I have in a long time.

Carmel and the Chickens

What a day!

At last the truth but before I get too far ahead of myself I should tell you everything that happened in order.

The Committee held their last scheduled hearing today and they asked Carmel to speak after me on purpose because they knew some of the things I would be saying about Barry and they knew Carmel's portion of the story would follow nicely after mine.

Carmel, that sweet little lamb, took questions from Esther about the night of the massacre and she told everyone, as loudly as she could speak, that she had seen the chicken coop all boarded up as the man and the woman came rushing down from the farmhouse and, within a few minutes, she looked again and the boards had been taken down.

All the animals had known that Barry had taken wood into the chicken coop - they had all seen him do it, he had not even tried to hide it. And the fact that his closest friends on the farm, if the term could be used lightly given my own testimony and accusation about what had happened to Rex, had been protected.

Why had they been prepared for the attack?

All signs continued to point to Barry and the Committee thanked Carmel and told everyone that Barry had not responded to their calls out for him to participate in the hearings and they were ready to declare their final verdict when a small voice piped up that there was still more to the story.

All eyes turned and who did we see but Sally, the little chicken, stepping forward into the centre of the group.

"I have something to say," she said, "and I better say it now."

None of us knew what to expect.

"I have been taking everything I have heard back to Barry and have told him everything you have all been saying," she said. The crowd roared angrily but were silenced by Ginger stomping her hoof and calling for order.

"Continue," she said, once quiet had been restored.

"He has been so angry at it all and he is saying everything you are saying about him is fake and that this is all an attempt by Goebbels to ruin his good name."

The animals all looked at me - me! - and I am not even on this Committee, but I could tell that they were not looking at me accusingly. Barry had shown his true character often enough that they knew better than to believe his idle lies.

Sally looked at me too, but there was surprising kindness with the look that she gave to me.

"And I am here today to tell you all that I know a lie when I see it and..." she paused... "Barry has been the one lying this whole time."

She raised her voice above the murmuring that went up in the crowd and continued over them all.

"He brought us the wood and told us we would need it one night to be kept safe. He told us when to barricade the doors and he even told us that he trusted the fox that animals were saying had been seen but that he wanted us to have protection just in case."

Sally looked at the members of the Committee and finished with this:

"I know this will make the coop unsafe for me but he has brainwashed the other chickens into believing everything he says and they would rather follow him now than risk admitting they've been wrong this whole time. I had my doubts after Rex but after this massacre I cannot stay quiet any longer. Barry did this. Barry is the reason why so many animals died that night."

Oh my friends the stomping of hoofs and mews and bleats and gobbles and oinks and all the sounds that came from all of us after she was finished. It was complete joy and confirmation that we had without a shadow of a doubt proven the guilt we had all suspected.

We made so much noise that our lookouts, those clever squirrels, let us know the man was coming towards us from the farmhouse and so we all scattered before any formal announcement could be made by the Committee but we all went back to our homes knowing that justice could now be dealt.

In Memoriam

Today marked one month since the massacre.

We brought flowers to the goose pond and the goat pen.

Very few words were said.

Barry is still hiding and Carmel takes the stand tomorrow and I think the Committee is very nearly done with their work.

I miss my friends on twitter. I am sad and could use some happiness right now.

I just went to google.com and I googled things that make me happy and while the words there were nice they were not coming from people who know me and who might know better words to say.

My Day With The June 23rd Committee

Today it was my turn to speak with the Committee and I had been practicing in my shack for the last couple of days as to what I was going to say.

My first thought to myself was that I needed to get over being so sad about everything and recognize that I was in a position to help make things right and that the anger I was feeling could be channeled better and oh boy did I ever give myself a good pep talk because I spoke to the Committee today like a turkey on a mission.

I was asked about my encounter with the fox on the night of the massacre but I asked the indulgence of the Committee if I could backtrack and try to frame the context of my encounter with what had been happening on the farmyard.

My beautiful friends, I wish you could have been there to hear me speak.

I brought it right back to the stump speech and, at first, there were maybe some murmurs of disapproval but then the animals in the audience started to see the dots I was connecting.

I told them how Barry's attitude had changed after the stump speech and how he had started spending all of his time with the chickens. I met Sally's eye in the crowd at this part of the story and that little chicken did not look away from me. I saw that she was in fact nodding along with me.

I told them how strange I found it that Rex had gone missing and that it had been blamed on a hawk when it is well known that cats also like to eat chickens and I just let that thought hang there without saying anything about Barry directly.

I then spoke about the Coalition of Animals and our work for animal rights and how some animals, mostly Barry and the chickens, seemed to want to vilify the work we were doing. I said how I felt like we had been targeted with changing our sign to look like a chicken and how I, personally, felt targeted as I had been the one to start the conversation right back at the stump speech.

The Committee let me speak but at this point Ginger did interrupt me and asked me to get to the night of the massacre and I had felt I had laid my groundwork well enough.

I reminded everyone of Klaus's testimony and how Barry had been seen opening the latch, not that any of the animals needed reminded but it added to my part of the story where I told them how the fox had come looking for me specifically and how it had known my name.

That got the reaction I wanted from the crowd for sure.

This was not just a massacre, I said at the end, but a targeted effort to silence me once and for all and hopefully destroy the work the COA has done thus far, an assassination attempt on Barry's biggest threat and foe under the guise of an attack on the farmyard as a whole.

I did not speak much about my bravery because that was not the tone that was needed and I thanked the man and the woman for their timing at the end of my speech.

The animals were quiet and the Committee excused me and thanked me for my testimony.

Sally disappeared again before I could catch up to her and I just wonder what she had gone to tell Barry about that.

Should I be scared? I am not. I am angry and Barry's campaign to take over the farmyard has gone far enough and, my friends, I think with today's testimony I have said what other's have been too afraid to say out loud.

Barry has to go.

Surprise Witness

Today the Committee called a surprise witness to come and speak with them and while I knew from my conversation with Carmel that there would be a new witness I was definitely surprised to see a small mouse take the stand.

I haven't ever talked with any of the mice that run this way and that and I hardly ever see them but this brave little mouse had something very important to say and it shocked the farmyard not so much that what he had to say was surprising but that for the first time we had some proof of what many of us had suspected all along!

The little mouse's name was Klaus although we suspected that he had given himself a fake name to hopefully avoid any backlash from the supporters of the animal he had come to condemn and we also suspected this because Klaus the Mouse is just too funny a name to come by honestly.

Klaus was asked to tell his story.

All the mice, he said, kept tabs on where Barry was at all times. He tormented them and hunted them down and so they had a little mouse network going where they passed on information as to his whereabouts.

Right now, he said, they knew Barry was up in the hayloft of the barn where he had been for most of the last few weeks, taking breaks only to come down in the middle of the night and sniff around to get something to eat before retreating to his nest, far above any of us animals.

That was not the surprising part.

The surprising part was that after Klaus had heard Jasmine tell her story of seeing the latch lifted it made him remember the report that had come through that Barry had been on the move late into evening, before dark, and that he had been walking the tall fence that kept the animals in the farmyard.

There had also been a part of that report where Barry had looked around and, not seeing any farmyard animals in sight, lifted the latch.

All of us were in a titter at this damning testimony and Klaus seemed shaken but he spoke confidently and he thanked the Committee for their time and he scampered off and was lost in the crowd.

I caught Sally's eye as she followed where he went and I made a note to go and talk to her after the hearing was done but when the crowd started to all move away I could not find her.

There is little doubt in all of our minds that Barry was responsible for the massacre. He had been seen talking with some animal outside the fence, now direct witness testimony that had him lifting the latch.

I am set to speak with the Committee in a couple of days myself and I am planning on giving all of my thoughts as to the part that Barry has played in all of this. 

The Farmyard Is Heavy

I am sorry I have not written on my weblog for a few days. To be honest there has not been much to write about because every day the animals just keep talking about the June 23rd Committee and no new information has come to light and I sit in my shack and I eat and I sleep and I am just too drained to sneak into the farmhouse every night.

I miss the old days where I was happy to spend time on the internet and learn about new things and talk with new friends. The whole farmyard is drowning in suspicion and anger and I know I need to be a better turkey and I am not living a life of heroic virtue right now but the world around me is just pushing me down and it is all making me very sad and very angry.

I have only come in here tonight to let those of you who are visiting know that I am alive and still here but the farmyard is heavy right now and I cannot carry it.

There is a Committee Conversation scheduled for tomorrow so I will hopefully have some more news to update then.

Goodnight all you beautiful animals and thank you for continuing to care about the ramblings of this sad old turkey.

Jasmine Offers A Clue

The first Committee Conversation the other day has gone viral through the farmyard as animals told other animals about what the geese had said and there has been an outpouring of love and support for the goose community from just about every animal on the farm. It has been lovely to see and oh boy did that translate into animals attending today's scheduled conversation.

Today the Committee were focused on how the foxes got into the farmyard and everyone was talking about "the latch". It was "the latch" this and "the latch" that because it had been reported that an animal had noticed the latch had been lifted on the main gate and that animal turned out to be none other than my once upon a time arch nemesis and now very dear friend Jasmine.

It was very interesting to watch Ginger ask the questions today of her very own daughter but Jasmine confirmed that she had noticed the latch being off the main gate even before returning to her stable for the night, which means it was unlocked at around dusk.

Jasmine answered the questions given to her in a very sharp and straightforward manner and I do not believe there was a single animal there who believed her to be lying. Even Sally seemed to be nodding along with what she was saying and I am surprised at that reaction from a chicken. I am not sure I trust the fact that she is here and I wonder if she is spying on the Committee Conversations and reporting everything back to Barry, who is still in hiding, the coward.

After the conversation this afternoon the farmyard was buzzing and Carmel told me that Esther told her they had a new witness come up to them after it was over to volunteer some information but Carmel wasn't told who the witness was or what the information was so that is a mystery to us that I hope will soon be revealed.

I do miss having my cellphone and I find that with all the talk happening around me these days I am just feeling so tired and lazy and I am sitting back in my shack and eating all the food that the man and the woman are feeding me and not having a lot of energy for much else.

This whole fox business is emotionally draining on us all.

Committee Conversations: The Geese Take The Stand

This afternoon the June 23rd Committee held their first public conversation back near the tree stump behind the barn. A number of animals on the farmyard attended and I was surprised to even see a chicken there and that chicken was Sally, the one who had found Rex. I noticed Sally had gone to some lengths to wash the red stain out of her as well as there was no trace of Barry's paw print on her little head.

I will not jump to conclusions yet but I think the fact that Sally was there is very important and so I am noting it to you now.

The geese were very shaken during their testimony and Greta, who was taking the lead on the questioning, also had a shake in her voice that those of us who have spoken with her a lot recently noticed but maybe the audience of animals did not.

Here is what the Committee learned:

- the geese had been sleeping and the first to wake had been a goose called Horace and he had yelled to wake the others because he had heard a rustling in the grass near where they lay

- there had been at least two foxes spotted at the same time

- the foxes were too quick and they had killed six of the smaller geese, including three goslings, in just a matter of minutes, long before the lights in the farmhouse had come on

- the foxes had disappeared and had not come back and the geese remaining were trying to help the wounded geese, not knowing that they had already died, while Horace kept a lookout for the foxes return

So the attack seemed to start with the geese and move inward into the farmyard. There were a lot of tears throughout the testimony as it was very hard to tell the story and to hear it and even though the Committee was also going to question other animals today they decided that they needed to take a break and let everything the geese had said sink in before moving forward and I think that was a very good idea on the part of the Committee.

The June 23rd Committee

Today we established the June 23rd Committee here on the farmyard with the goal of establishing exactly what happened on the night of the massacre. We will get to the truth and I am just sure that Barry is behind all of this but we need to get some proof so that the animals of the farmyard will believe us.

The committee is made up of Esther, whom most of the animals like and believe to be a very smart animal, Ginger, Jasmine's mother and a very trusted horse on the farmyard and a new friend of ours named Greta who is a goose and who lost two of her babies on the night of the massacre.

Esther and I talked about me being a part of the committee because I am also a trusted animal on the farmyard and my voice means a lot and she thought that I would better serve as a witness to the events and to tell my story of the attack and how the fox knew my name and it might be more powerful if I was the one answering the questions and not asking them of others.

The June 23rd Committee is going to be holding very public conversations during some afternoons when we know the man and the woman will be occupied and we will be calling witnesses to get a full account of events. Animals do not have to come to answer questions but we believe that they will because if they do not then there might be some suspicion and questions about what they have to hide.

I hope the animals can trust the Committee to do its job. This is not about farmyard politics, this is about getting to the truth.

No More Cellphone

Oh what a silly and stupid turkey I was last night.

I brought my cellphone with me to charge while I wrote in my weblog and I was so angry after remembering the attack and the night of the massacre that I forgot it here and now it is nowhere to be found.

I hope the man and the woman do not find my twitter account. I have tried going to twitter.com on the computer here as well but it is already logged in on the woman's account and I do not want to login under my account because I will not have any way to login again as her as I do not know her passcode.

I am so angry about this and mad at myself.

Silly, stupid turkey.

Scared and Brave

Thank you to my twitter friends today for giving me some happy things to think about. I do not want to dwell on the night of the massacre too much but I do want to tell you how your friendly farmyard turkey here was both a very scared turkey and a very brave turkey when the fox came right up to the doorway of my little shack.

I had hear the commotion and the geese crying out and I went to the door of my shack and the lights came on in the farmhouse and I could hear the voices of the man and the woman and then I looked the other way away from the farmhouse and right there, right at my doorstep, there was a fox and I swear to you that I heard him say my name, "Goebbels" he said, and I thought to myself how could he know my name as I have never met a fox before and then he snarled and showed his teeth and I did not back down from my own doorstep, no sir, not one bit.

I made myself the largest version of myself that I could and I got right up on my legs and brought my wings up and I yelled at him as loudly as I could, so loudly that my throat hurt for three days, and I flapped my wings and I took a step towards him and I could tell that he was rethinking things and then the man and the woman were running towards us both and he snarled at me again and turned around and took off and the man and the woman chased him down and the man stopped to check on me which I thought was very nice.

I was a lucky one that night but it was clear that the foxes had been told to find me and had been told my name.

Barry.

He will be held accountable for this.

Massacre

Hello my beautiful friends, I am writing tonight to tell you that I am okay but a lot has happened in the last two weeks and the farmyard is a changed place and I fear it is a changed place forever.

We are scared.

The fox got into the farmyard. Foxes, I should say because we are not sure how many there were exactly but we know from accounts that there was more than one.

We lost six geese and a baby goat.

The story as best as I can make out because there have been many stories floating around in the last two weeks is that they entered through the main gate and just walked right into the farmyard in the middle of the night and they were able to avoid all of the traps that were set for them outside the fence.

I am not going to hint at this because from all accounts that I have heard I think I can say this with a degree of certainty that gives me confidence and I do not care if saying this gets me in any trouble because this turkey has had enough.

This was all Barry's doing.

Barry had been seen at the fence in the days leading up to the fox attack, seeming to be talking with something unseen in the tall grass beyond.

Barry has the ability to unlock the front gate by flipping the latch at the very top. Very few of us animals can get up there the way he can and the way the foxes just got in, they had to have had some help.

And not one single chicken was harmed.

It turns out that Barry had helped the chickens bring all that wood into their coop so that they could use it to barricade the entrance on the night of the attack. Carmel saw the barricade herself in the aftermath before they could take it down.

We believe that Barry made a deal with the foxes but he still couldn't trust them enough to leave his flock alone so he put those extra provisions in place.

The foxes have not been caught.

My friends, there was so much blood. I went down to the pond's edge and all of the geese had been taken away by the man and the woman but they could not get all of the blood off of the reeds and the tall grasses and the short grasses.

The goats are traumatized.

It has been a sad, sad, sad few weeks here on the farm. Barry seems to know that we suspect him as he has hardly been seen at all. He is hiding up in the barn loft and we are angry, we are so angry.

We have talked to the chickens but they are playing stupid, which is an easy game for them to be playing, and they are not saying anything about Barry and instead are throwing our own words back at us and saying we should not be worried about other animals on other farms when we have these problems at our very own doorstep.

They are saying that ever since our stump speech and the work of the Farmyard Four and the COA came about, the farmyard has gone to hell. Whenever we say anything about Barry these little chicken redheads say that they want the farmyard to be like it was and they believe Barry is the one to make it that way.

I am going to be calling for Barry to come and explain himself to the animals and to answer our questions. I am not afraid of him or the foxes.

You see my friends, the foxes came for me that night as well.

It is getting late and so I will tell that part of the story to you tomorrow night. My cellphone is charged again so I will see you tomorrow on twitter as well.

These are dark days and I could use a little support anywhere I can find it.