Goodbye November, 2010...

You were a credit to all the Novembers. The plants honored you by offering amazing colors and beauty before their winter rest. Here is one small tree I drive by on my way to the bunny shelter.

November, 2010

What a planet...to have such beautiful inhabitants.

Patty, over at the Animal Liberation blog, posted a video that is quite phenomenal. I am placing it here for you to see....the woman allows her fellow earthling to be in charge of the interaction and what happens is just exquisite.

We are surrounded by fur, feather, leaf and fin kin who have much to offer.......

Marshall says.....

Enjoy your day and give a hug or a caress to all those beings that are close to you.......

Marshall says......

Turkey rescue.....

Karan Dawn, author of Thanking the Monkey, shows how she purchases a turkey every year at this time. If we all did this, the holiday could become a time of joy instead of a frenzy of death.

Note at about 1minute and 40 something seconds into the video there is a period of 20 seconds or so showing turkeys hung upside down in shackles and then some footage of someone punching the helpless animals....for "fun". Turn away at this part if you must, then watch the remainder of the video.

All animals have the right to their own lives......to live according to their own natures.....without abuse, exploitation,  or enslavement by anyone. Human animals do not need to eat the flesh of other sentient beings to live. Please begin your vegan journey as soon as possible. Lives are at stake.

Bumper sticker

I went to zazzle and made and ordered a bumper sticker:

It was pretty easy, I am curious as to what the actual sticker looks like....

Very nice video......

I found this thanks to Our Compass. Take a look.

Give life a chance, go vegan.

On November 16th......

.....I recently wrote about the grotesque fact that there are 10 McDonald's for every tiger living in the wild.

Today, in a story on Yahoo news, it is reported that those tigers will be extinct....in 12 years.

What an achievement for human animals and "civilization". The panoply of our destruction of natural life will soon add the Tiger to its list.

Lesson(s) to be learned? Who knows....maybe....never trust an ape with a tool? (or does that do a disservice to the other apes?)

A Thanksgiving prayer.......

This is a holiday that has been distorted into joyfulness over the abuse then death and then eating an innocent baby being. (most are killed at age 4 to 6 months...their lifespan can be up to 10 years)

This version of grace saying brings some truthfulness to the celebration.


Stop the cycle of abuse, suffering and death, please. Go vegan. That would be something to be thankful for.

I can't wrap my mind around.......

the fact that there are only an estimated 3,000 or so tigers left in the wild in the whole world. Especially when you couple this with the fact that there are an estimated 30,000 Mcdonald's worldwide.

This means that for every tiger living in their original habitat, there are 10 Mcdonald's spewing out colored sugar water and cholesterol. One tiger......ten McDonald's.

The wikipedia article also notes that at the beginning of the 20th Century there were an estimated 100,000 tigers living in the wild.

Estimates for the lion population are a little more variable but a likely high guess is 20,000 or so left in the wild......again there are many more of the golden arch places than there are lions. In 1950 the estimated wild lion population was 400,000.

I am not particularly interested in a world where fat calorie factories outnumber tigers. I do believe we human animals are totally out of control....in many many ways.

Bunny Bites?

Bunny Bites is the name given to a cookbook (now available) created from recipes submitted by friends of Heartland Rabbit Rescue. Volunteers worked on creating the cookbook as a fund-raising activity on behalf of the bunnies that live out at the shelter.

The recipes are vegetarian or vegan with information in the front of the cookbook about various ingredients that can be used make a vegetarian item into a vegan one.

Cover photo

We just tried out the submission by a 6 year old bunny loving girl from Australia (Elisheba) and it is very good.....I fully expect it to become a regular dish at our house. She named it Shrek Soup (subtitle: swamp slime with eyeballs). Her imagination sounds like mine was at age 6 (and still is to some degree).

The ingredients include cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and spinach (with some others). The first two are definitely not foods I was familiar with at age 6. If her soup is any indicator, she has a bright future at creating recipes that will knock your socks off.

The book also contains bunny anecdotes from folks that are privileged to live with these fur people.

So....the book sells for $10 (plus shipping...email for details) and  ordered by emailing bunnybitescookbook@gmail.com.

If you live in Norman Oklahoma the books are also available at Earth Natural Foods and at Main Street Photo/Video. Should you decide to order a number of books and are in the area....some sort of delivery or pick-up option can likely be worked out.

There are about 120 recipes of all types including appetizers and desserts. There is a black bean dip recipe in there that results in absolutely the best bean dip I have ever eaten.

The editor of the cookbook writes an interesting note at the beginning about her relationship to vegetarian and vegan cooking as well as the impact volunteering has had on her.

The best thing about the cookbook (aside from the food that can be prepared) is that all proceeds will go toward supporting the fur folks that live out at the shelter.

It would make a great gift item.....one with a dual mission.....maybe introducing someone to vegetarian/vegan cooking and........providing funds to care for animal people with no forever family to live with.

Jack says "buy the cookbook"

Gwendolyn says.."buy the cookbook".

The baby boys....are too young to talk.

Midnite says...gimme a carrot.

All the above fur folks live out at Heartland, buying  the cookbook helps them. Thank you.

Even if you can't help out by buying, do take some time a find an animal shelter that can use your efforts.....volunteers are vital to keep most rescue operations going. If you can't adopt, foster....if you can't foster,volunteer....if you can't volunteer, donate. Do all of these things if possible.

The vast majority of animal people that end up in shelters do so because some human animal(s) screwed up or were cruel or neglectful or irresponsible or interfered in their lives some way or another.....the animal people did not create the situation that led to their being in a shelter.....we did.....and whatever we can do to make life better for them.....is only proper.

Volunteering........

Hanging out with rabbits on a near daily basis is many things, one of those being a learning opportunity. A few days ago I was gifted with the chance to see....and intervene in.....a bunny fight.

One of the baby boys dug under his outside enclosure and entered the enclosure occupied by Lucy and Elias. Elias (and Lucy too, I presume) objected and baby boy bunny and Elias went at it hot and heavy.....no screaming or yelling but lots of commotion in the area and fur flying in the air.

Spoilsport that I am, when I got into the enclosure I was able to scoop up baby boy and that was the end of the hubbub. Both of the combatants seemed well pleased to have somebody interrupt and baby boy struggled not at all....at least not until I carried him around for what he decided was too long and started to squirm. I placed him in a different enclosure and he was fine...in fact seemed a little proud of himself.

Elias, who is generally not the friendliest of fellows (and, to my mind, is sort of a bully and abuser) seemed somewhat stunned. OK, but rattled. He let me pet him a lot and pick him up and check for injury (which is generally not his demeanor). He appeared to be fine as did his opponent, nothing amiss except for some fur flying in the breeze.

A secret part of me is sort of glad Elias had some troubles....he appears to beat up on Lucy when he gets upset and that sort of stuff irritates me. Being upset provides no license to be mean to others....especially if they are not the cause of the upset. So maybe a little karma balancing went on here?

That same day gave me the chance to see what looked like sulking on the part of Gwendolyn. She was taken outside but instead of being allowed to roam free I placed her in an enclosure because some other bunny folk were roaming. Gwendolyn proceeded to get up under her shelter basket and just stayed there....unusual for her, she is usually active, alert and checking everything out. Later, when the earlier roamers were back inside, she was allowed to roam....whole demeanor change, she ran around...looked at things and looked happy as hell.

All us animals know what we like and don't like and all us animals get bothered when we do not get what we want. A big learning day for me, big excitement for baby boy and Lucy and Elias, big disappointment followed by pleasure for Gwendolyn.

Whew, volunteering is something else. You are missing out if you aren't doing it.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the Vegan movement.....

Way back in 1944, Donald Watson (and others) gave a formal definition for the word vegan and November 1st is marked as the anniversary.

The word 'veganism' denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose...

I found a slideshow about veganism that is pretty good. It has (for my taste) a few too many references to "celebrities" but the music wasn't bad, the pictures were non-gory......for you bunny folk there is a cool picture of a bunny and a kitten at about the 4.5 to 5 minute mark.....and the information is thoughtfully presented.

It runs about 7 minutes or so:


To my mind veganism is an elaboration of an approach to living that is both simple and profound....the notion of live and let live. Consider life.........and the effect(s) your way of living has on other living beings........