Hot day at the Farmers Market and Animal Acres

  Acton, California
Monday, July 16, 2007

Another late night last night with hardly any sleep after getting in really late (then taking the time to make an entry here), and this morning I wanted to get up early to start the day's planned activities, which were only a few. First on the agenda was to attend the Hollywood Farmers' Market, held every Sunday morning. We headed down there

around 9am, and by that time it was already starting to get quite warm, in anticipation of a very hot day to be! I had wanted to see what a California Farmers' Market might be like - not that I've been to one in Canada even - but from what I imagined with the bountiful sunny and plant-growth inducing weather here, I thought that the fruits and vegetables would be something to see. And they were! Lots of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables to choose from. We bought 3 cartons of strawberries for $5 and a fresh cantaloupe for $2. A loaf of normal, plain sourdough bread for Ben, and a loaf of "Rockin' Red Pepper Dill Sourdough" for me, for $6 for both. Ben bought some tomatoes as well to eat raw, and I bought a healthy-looking package of nut trail mix for $4, to snack on later on. There were so many interesting, great-looking vegetables there, including bountifuls of various type of "greens" (lettuces, arugula, dill, basil, mint, wild mixed greens, etc.), and I would have definitely bought a lot more if I had a kitchen to prepare it all in! But we only have a microwave and a fridge, so my plan was just to buy some fruit to store in the fridge to eat in the morning and for snacks.

After the Farmers' Market, we headed towards the mountainous dessert of "Acton", where the farmed animal sanctuary, Animal Acres, is located, to see the property and the animals as I wanted to see it for myself in person - this wonderful animal haven that Lorri Bausten, the founder of the Farm Sanctuary (www.farmsanctuary.com), started two years ago just at a location about an hour from L.A. From the distance of Hollywood to the sanctuary, the outdoor temperature raised from 21 degrees to over 30 degrees celsius! It was scorching hot when we got out of the car when we arrived there.

We were greeted by a woman who worked at Animal Acres with an awesome "Vegan" tattoo on her right arm (just like what I want to get!), and the resident friendly dog, named Duke. We were early for the scheduled 1pm tour, so we had some time to chat with her and also to take a look around the beautiful courtyard garden, where Duke was hanging out with his yellow ball, plus a duo of a duck and a big (former broiler) rooster, whose names I have unfortunately forgotten! At one point one fence leading into the courtyard got unlocked and prompted some of the goats to get in, where they weren't allowed, which caused a bit of a ruckus to get back into their proper areas. They had a small gift shop too where I bought a t-shirt, a "Real Food Daily" cookbook (a restaurant I want to visit while we're here), and some Primal Strips (teriyaki and bbq) for myself, as well as a bunch of "Eating" DVDs that I had wanted to buy anyways for Earthsave.


A woman named Leanne, who is the Humane Education Co-ordinator there, then gave us the official tour of the sanctuary. It was great to speak with her and I was able to ask some good questions regarding different aspects of running the sanctuary. The Animal Acres Sanctuary (www.animalacres.org) was started in 2005 by Lorri Bauston, after she left Farm Sanctuary, and the 26 acres of land was donated to the organization. I call it an organization, because, like Farm Sanctuary, the mandate of Animal Acres is three-fold: rescuing the animals from abuse and/or slaughterhouse situations, to live out the rest of their lives peacefully and happily at the sanctuary; providing a humane outreach education program to the public (and children); and performing animal cruelty investigations within the area of California, which I read is one of the few States that DOESN'T exempt farmed animals from allowed cruelty and abuse.

Leanne told us that the sanctuary runs with only 6 employees and then mostly volunteers. Lorri is their main Director and does the fundraising, but their budget is quite small - a lot smaller than what I would have thought - at about $200,000. I read online too on a previous tax return of the sanctuary that Lorri is a Board Director, and she does not get paid for the work she puts in. The total wages for the year listed were also quite low, and it showed that most of the money goes directly towards to the expenses of running the sanctuary: property/maintenance expenses, animal care expenses, fundraising, the outreach program, etc. For such a small budget it seems that they really do get a lot done, and they have the original model of Farm Sanctuary to work off of, and I could see for myself how it works. Going there to the sanctuary and seeing it all for myself was an eye opener and painted that visual picture of what the place is like and how it works. I had just bought my yearly membership with them last week, and this is something that I definitely support having my dollars go towards.


While the land is on 26 acres, most of it is unused for the animals (due to funding constraints) and they have just over 100 animals staying there, including some really big pink pigs (so big because of the growth hormones they were treated with when they were being raised for slaughter); little egg layer chickens; big, hormone induced turkeys; big steers (male cows) who are now adults but were once living as malnourished baby calves being prepped to make veal out of when they were rescued; goats and sheep, a few burros, and two emus. I asked Leanne about the volunteer situation, since they seem to rely heavily on volunteers, and she indicated that people are really willing and dedicated to volunteer, saying that some people will take days off work to volunteer there. (Upon later further research on the AA website, I saw that the sanctuary requires volunteers to commit to at least one 8 hour shift per week to help at the sanctuary with various chores.) Her volunteers, specifically, work on giving the presentations to children for the humane ed. program. She said that 95% of their revenues are from donors and when I asked who their donors comprise of (foundations, individuals, etc.), she said that they have a "celebrity" donor base, as in several famous Hollywood celebrities (such as Darryl Hannah and the awesome Jorja Fox, whom they have also named a pig after!) who help support the sanctuary with their donations. This is such a wonderful resource to tap into, especially seeing as they are located just on the outskirts of Hollywood itself! She said that Alicia Silverstone visits there too, and that Christina Ricci even paid a visit there earlier this year and came to the farm dressed in formal dressy Hollywood star attire, not realizing that she was going to get dirty with all the animals, the mud, the straw, etc! I was surprised myself that I didn't get my allergies while we were there (unlike my visit to the Hearts on Noses Pig Sanctuary last year!), so I could totally see myself being physically involved in a location like this. It was beautiful, really, as well as bitter sweet. Sad to think that many of these animals are just there to live out the rest of their shortened lives - shortened due to the growth hormones that they were infected with in their pre-sanctuary existence as well as their gentically engineered make-up, which will prove to cause their deaths soon. So while it's great that these chosen ones were lucky enough to escape horrific death in a slaughterhouse, their second chance is not as long as it should be, since they've been genetically altered, and more, to actually not live any longer than what they were intended for, and so any further time for them is "bonus" time. But at least they are there, and seemed to be happy. They really are the ambassadors for the millions of brothers and sisters that _don't_ make it to a sanctuary (ie. get rescued from torture and death) and symbolize the enormity of the situation, as well as offer some hope for the future in general, if rescue operations like this keep up, as well as their educational mission and cruelty investigations.

So after our tour we left the sanctuary and headed back to Hollywood to Native Foods restaurant for lunch, one of the foremost restaurants on my list to try out. I have the cookbook, and the food all sounds (or reads) amazing and yummy! I couldn't really decide

what to get when we got there, but then opted for the Ceasar Salad with "blackened tempeh", and Ben got a tempeh burger with fries. The salad was totally delicious, while the tempeh, made by the restaurant and completely unlike any other tempeh I've ever tried or seen before, tasted (and looked) more like polenta than tempeh to me. Nonetheless, it was all good. I was so proud of Ben for finishing his burger! Then I had a great idea and decided to get one of their pizzas to go, which I had later on tonight for dinner. It was the "Mamma Mia" pizza, with portobello mushrooms, chopped tomatoes, their own homemade seitan sausage, carmelized onions, pesto and roasted garlic. No cheese at all, and it was very yummy indeed! We went back to the hotel after lunch and I passed out for a few hours, as there's been sleep deprivation ever since we got here and it was time to catch up. Tomorow we are going to take it "easy", and go to the beach. It's supposed to be beach weather again tomorrow, at 27 degrees.