MYC: REID #261
As a few of you Reiders know, every fall, I do something brave.
SHORT:
As a few of you Reiders know, every fall, I do something brave. No, not film a nude TikTok in a cornfield or vote early. I get in a rented Kia Sorento and drive three hours upstate with my partner Jess to go see cows with “Susan” who have one leg
MEDIUM:
My partner Jess loves animals. Not in the “we should get a dog!” way, in the “I am a militant vegan and here’s a calendar of barnyard creatures who have survived electrical fires and now poop through a surgical tube that I am going to hang directly across from the foot of our bed so every morning you have to wake up staring into the cockeyed gaze of a chicken with mange” way.
That calendar now lives in the office, btw. After two years of opening my eyes and seeing pigs with the hollow, socket-less stare of an ancient oracle, roosters with pimples, and ducks whose feet had been replaced with wine corks, I said: enough!
LONG:
I have made the commitment to visiting Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, once a year for their Harvest Picnic in the cow pasture. Woodstock does super meaningful work saving the most freak-ass looking animals alive from dairy farms, et al. They also do super meaningful work testing the limits of my central nervous system.
As we drove upstate, the anticipation to see which creatures survived the winter was actually not killing me because we get email and postcard updates about that monthly.
The traffic, however, was quite bad, which meant Jess kept whispering, “Oh god, we’re going to have almost zero time with the cows,” over and over as I stared at the George Washington Bridge and replied (call-and-response style), “We will have plenty of time.”
When we arrived, the woman at check-in started, “Have you visited us bef—” but stopped mid-sentence when she saw Jess. “Never mind,” she said. “I remember you.”
Because I’m a hungry guy and huge bitch, I made Jess stop at the free vegan cheese, cider, kombucha, and chocolate kiosks before we trudged through the mud and hay to go see Mr. and Mrs. and (probably, let’s be honest Mx.) lumpy bovines.
The second the last drop of cider hit my cup, Jess SPRINTED to go pet Johnnyboy, Heathcliffe, Maximus, Mikey, Woody, and Judy, while I mentally coached myself through the olfactory/visual/sonic Ninja Warrior course that is the cow barn.
It’s good to remember, whilst gazing (voluntarily or involuntarily) upon the cattle, pigs, and birds at Woodstock, that this is them doing well. This is them rescued. Happy. They were, if you can believe it, in worse shape before this.
I also recycled my “Sorry, I can’t I’m Jewish” response from last year to each of the well-intentioned volunteers who kept trying to get me to feed alfalfa blocks to the cows. Judaism has no rule against this, in fact, they might have a rule that says you should feed alfalfa to cows, but it doesn’t matter, the volunteers back off and don’t ask any follow-up questions.
The first time I accompanied Jess to the farm, I petted an old goat named Buddy. This wasn’t entirely voluntary. They said, “You have to touch something, you came all this way.” So I touched Buddy. He passed away soon after. I don’t think the two events were related, but you never know.
This year, I selected a perfectly normal-looking sheep as my one animal to pet. As I reached down to make contact, another guy in the pen let out one of the most apocalyptic BAHs I’ve ever heard. It did not inspire confidence.
That’s for sure God clearing His throat.
“You just marked the next one for death.”
Oh well!
The Harvest Picnic started around six. It’s exactly what it sounds like: you’re sitting in cow shit and eating. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve tried to enjoy a lukewarm seitan flatbread while parked next to a steaming pile of what I hope was fertilizer and not, say, the decayed soul of a chicken who used to be named Angela.
Behind us, an older man sat alone on his picnic blanket, solemnly chomping on farro. Eventually, a farm volunteer wandered over and struck up a conversation. He told her he’d driven in from Boston and had found veganism “later in life” (which I assume means post-divorce, or possibly post-colonoscopy), but was thrilled to be part of such a loving, peaceful event.
Before eavesdropping on this man, I had Jess take my annual photo in front of the tree where Beatrice the turkey (my least favorite animal EVER from the Woodstock calendar) was euthanized. (Love and peace!)
Eventually it was time to drive home. 3 hours. In the dark. We returned our rental car about a 20-minute walk from our apartment and had to trek home in the pouring rain at 10 p.m. …smelling like everything you just read.
I hope everyone has the chance to experience a Harvest Picnic in the cow pasture in person one day (instead of experiencing it via this newsletter or whatever scent penetrated their Park Slope window on our walk home.)
Snack of the week was the vegan herb cheese spread we sampled (if you can believe it.)
C U Next Tuesday
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Sincerely,
Reid Pope
By the way, if this wasn’t enough, Jess wants me to wish everyone a “Happy Fat Bear Week” and hopes you all “voted for who you really thought should win”. We watched rangers discuss #32 Chunk and #856’s rivalry for nearly an hour tonight on the park livestream, of course. Some people do drugs. NOT US.
