Thursday, May 13th. DAY UNO

So even though Senior project officially started on Monday (when I didn't show up at school), it's taken me basically half of my first week to actually get started with this monster of a project. First of all, Woodstock isn't exactly a skip and a stroll away from my house. Secondly, I had to stick around to take my APES test and then my little sister caught a horrible 24 hour bug and mum didn't want to force her to be in the car for that long while she wasn't feeling all that great.
So Wednesday, late afternoon we arrive. I had to drive myself so that I could have a car to get back and forth from the sanctuary to the house I'm staying in. (I've got this adorable little room with the narrowest little bed and my door is held closed right now with a thumb tack and I'm really quite pleased with it.) I listened to a book on tape about wizards (I'm sure you haven't heard of it- it's very obscure) and Wilco and the drive went by pretty quickly. My mom and grandma and little sister were in the car ahead of me making lots of noise.

So once I dropped all my bags off at my temporary home and met the family I'll be staying with (who is simply Charmant) we drove to the sanctuary (it's about a 25 minute drive). Anyway, Woodstock is just BEAUTIFUL did I tell you that yet? well it is. Water and trees and clean air and mist and just yumm. I'm planning on going out to take some proper pictures very soon. (that's right, I'm a photographer. What of it?!)
Anyway, once I got checked in there, and met Sophie (one of the many lovely people working there) and some of the goats we went to the Garden Cafe, my most favorite place in the world to eat. DEElicious!

I ate myself into a vegan, fair trade coma and still had left overs for lunch the next day.

So now I'm on my own. I slept very little in a strange place all by myself but was very excited to start my first day. I got up, left the house, (drove back to the house to get my lunch) and then stopped at a natural foods store for breakfast. mmm

I had lots of fun on my first day but soon found out that it's exhausting work. I was there for ten hours- running around, feeding the pigs, lifting whole bails of hay all by myself, that sort of thing-meeting the animals, meeting the people (who are all really nice!) and doing little chores that look a lot easier than they actually are.

I got there at about 9:45 and was introduced to the caretakers there. I helped bandage a goat named jumper's knee and found out that goats are very strong and don't really like getting their knees bandaged. Then I washed out some buckets, and helped clean out and put fresh bedding in one of the chicken coops with two girls who were volunteering for the day. That took a long time. I washed some dishes and helped set up a tent for the pigs and met a pig named Pete who is a sweetheart but can't walk very well which is sad. There are a lot of animals here with problems, but most of them still manage pretty well and look happy to me. There's a goat and a kitty cat with three legs and an orange barn cat with only a little stump of a tail. He looks like a mini bobcat. So cute. The animals love attention and will follow you everywhere.

We took a break for lunch and the turkeys watched on with jealousy. I swept up the grain barn and cleaned the turkey's stall and did some more dishes. Then I met an 18 year old cat named Bug that I can't stop petting and a very nice gentleman named phil who used to be a professional vegan baker. I plan on stealing all his recipes.

I picked up sticks in the duck and rooster inclosures (the roosters are HUGE!) and visited the compost piles which are very impressive and not at all smelly. There are two ducks that never leave each other's side names Micky and Joe (adorable!). I helped feed the cows (who are huge) and met some more people and swept the floor inside and held a rooser while he got his eye cleaned out and I changed all the animls' water and did about a billion things until it was time to start closing up. It's important to put the birds either in their houses or in cages in the building because there are coyotes and black bears and foxes and cougars and who knows what else out there in the wild that would love to make a snack out of them.

The chickens love getting fed and the broiler chickens will literally eat themselves to death, so you have to watch them carefully. They hate going in their houses, however, and I had to catch and carry inside about seven roosters. I learned how to properly catch and hold them and I feel that I'm now fairly comfortable with it, which is pretty cool.

Work at the sanctuary is never done, but at about 8:00 I was just about falling over and really, really needed a shower so I folded up the last of the towels, fed the barn cats, helped do one last check of al the barn doors and headed home.

Instant noodles for now, but soon I will be an amazing vegan cook and will make a huge delicious dinner for you all! I feel a veganomicon dinner party coming on. After I sleep for a year and I half of course (if this project doesn't kill me). Love you!