Tender-hearted in Tehama County: a weekend at Farm Sanctuary

My wife and I spent the weekend up in Northern California. (Parenthetically, we really were in Northern California this time, up in Butte, Glenn, and Tehama counties. Like most southlanders, I tend to refer to the Bay Area as “Northern” California when that region is, clearly, closer to the center. My childhood homes in coastal Monterey and rural Alameda counties are almost as close to Mexico as they are to the Oregon border.)

We went up north to attend the spring hoe-down at Farm Sanctuary, which has rapidly become one of our favorite charities. I’ll get pictures up tonight or tomorrow of some of the pigs, geese, goats, sheep, turkeys, rabbits and cows with whom we bonded. We also got to meet vegan animal activists from all across the West, enjoy some delicious food, and hear some inspiring and moving speeches about the next steps for both Farm Sanctuary in particular and the animal rights movement in general.

The big campaign for this fall is to pass the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which will appear as a general initiative on the November ballot in California. This initiative (which has not yet been assigned a number) will not ban all forms of factory farming. What it will ban is the use of three particularly cruel confinement practices:

1. gestation crates (for pigs)
2. veal crates (for male calves)
3. battery cages (for chickens)

The European Union has already banned the first two, as have Arizona and Florida. The initiative is backed by the Humane Society of the United States, the Catholic Rural Life Conference, and countless veterinarians.

Gene Baur, the president of Farm Sanctuary, spoke to the group on Saturday night. (On the flight home, I finished his marvelous book, which I recommend with enthusiasm). Baur was speaking to an entirely vegan audience, but he reminded us that we are — at most — 2% of the American population. Passing ballot initiatives like this one will require the support of those who do choose to eat animals, but who would prefer that the animals they eat live and die without excessive cruelty or confinement. Those of us who would like to see animals endowed with rights must, for now, work with those for whom such a notion is a bridge too far. Securing animal welfare through incremental improvements such as those proposed by this act makes the most sense. It’s foolish to let the best be the enemy of the good, and when the well-being of millions of sentient beings is on the line, it is unthinkable not to support anything that can dramatically improve the quality of life for our fellow creatures. The early polls are in our favor, but we can expect a huge push from big Ag. Though there is much on the autumn ballot about which to be concerned, in our family our time, money, and energy will go largely towards passing this vital act.

The Farm Sanctuary is located just west of Orland, off of Interstate 5, 90 minutes north of Sacramento. We stayed a few miles east, at a lovely bed-and-breakfast outside of Chico, just off Highway 32: Cory’s Country Inn. If you have occasion to be in the Butte/Glenn/Tehama county area, there’s no better and more comfortable place to stay. I want to plug Cory because not only was her home lovely, but her willingess to accomodate vegan guests was extraordinary. Relatively few B&Bs are pure vegan, but many proprietors will make accomodations if you call and ask for purely plant-based offerings in advance. Cory had never had vegans stay with her before, but spent the whole week before our arrival studying cookbooks. We were lavished with goodies, ranging from spectacular vegan pancakes at breakfast to a sublime rhubarb tart at night. Not a trace of egg or dairy to be found. For fellow vegans on their way to visit Farm Sanctuary, you could do much worse than to stay with Cory.

One other thing about veganism: I tend to have a fascination with asceticism, which makes me a poor advocate for a plant-based lifestyle. The fact that I tend to think of food more as fuel than a source of pleasure leaves me unable to rhapsodize at great length about tastes and dishes. Anyone who has dined with me knows that I tend to shovel my food in quickly in order to move on to other things. (It’s one of my worst lingering habits). But this weekend, we were surrounded by vegan foodies who talked with tremendous enthusiasm about the intense pleasures available to those who eat cruelty-free. We spoke with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of the Joy of Vegan Baking; we brought home a copy of her book. Anyone who spends five minutes with Colleen will discover that compassion and self-denial need not go together — she’s as good an advocate as any for the position that the sensual and the humane can be effectively combined.

I need to do a better job of making the case that veganism can be fun, tasty, and less expensive than people realize.