Animal Acres

Animal Acres is a wonderful animal sanctuary situated on a 26 acre hacienda ranch in Acton. a mountainous region about 45 minutes from Hollywood. There they rescue farmed animals and run a learning centre for their protection.

In March my daughter- a dedicated animal lover and Vegan- decided to celebrate her birthday there, making it a happy outing for her friends and their children. The farm caters for birthdays, providing a vegan birthday cake (and allowing you to bring your own vegan food) and including a two hour "meet the animals" tour of the farm, invaluable for both City children and adults.

Arriving, you are aware of the surrounding mountains in this peaceful (apart from animal noises!) setting:


And here Violet, my Granddaughter, arrives for a new experience:


You are met at the gates by a lot of pushy goats (as well as very friendly, welcoming staff) and soon find yourself surrounded by apparently hundreds of poultry, including turkeys who look as if they are animatronic, alien beasts from a sci-fi movie. What I really appreciated was knowing that these birds were not lying-in-wait to be roasted for Thanksgiving or Christmas...





Hungry, we ate right away from tables set out in the Rose Garden accompanied by this noisy, equally hungry, collection of birds- hens, geese, ducks and, of course, turkeys:



Unsurprisingly, some of the children- and adults too!- were intimidated by these pecking, scavenging birds, this goose in particular:



After lunch it was the birds' time to be fed and the children were encouraged to feed them lettuce by hand, under supervision:


Now it was time for the tour, led by Cameron- one of the team who was excellent with the children. First he led us to the cattle. Before entering the field he pointed out this very fierce looking bull on the far side, saying we should be prepared to make a fast exit if he approached!


Sure enough, he DID start to move in our direction, so we didn't spend too long stroking the cows there....


Needless to say, the donkeys were very popular and it was lovely to watch the children's faces as they made physical contact with them:




Pig time next:


Here we were warned to be cautious not to alarm these very large beasts. So we all stood back while Cameron supervised the semi-slumbering sow being given "belly-rubs". Again, it was a delight to see the children's expressions:



After this we wound our way to the Goat section. Personally, I have always been a bit wary of goats (inspite of being a Capricorn!) as I have known some pretty vicious ones in my life- but apart from a bit of butting these were all civilized- and some undeniably cute!



Now it was wind-down time:


Having seen quite enough animals today, how about just getting into a hole in the ground?



I have not mentioned all the animals we were introduced to, just the more memorable ones. What I have not told is the many horror tales we were told of some of the animals' previous lives before they were rescued by these amazing, dedicated people.


Post Script:

Before leaving I took some time out to look at the collection of photos displayed showing famous people who were Vegetarians: Tolstoy, Thoreau, Gandhi, Alice Walker, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, Bernard Shaw...surely these are all people worth listening to?! They all had great quotes attached to them- I will just show two:

Violet in Arcadia

Following my last two posts- about Arcadia Woodlands- the title of this one might be misleading: I am not referring to the lost Woodlands, but to Arcadia's Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden.

First, I need to tell you that I am now back in the UK for the Summer. I am shocked to see that my last post was written on February 18th, and March is a blank. So now, before writing about my recent UK experiences, I am going to catch up on some of the events of my last weeks in Los Angeles.

I am starting with my Granddaughter Violet's first visit- with my daughter and me- to one of my favourite places, the Arcadia Arboretum.

Apart from the fact that I wanted to go there, I was longing to show her the Peacocks displaying their miraculous tails. Unfortunately, as typical "mad dogs", we arrived in the hot midday sun and the peacocks were preferring to lie in the shade of trees- either below them or in their branches:





Since Violet was a few months old I have been encouraging her to feel the bark on trees, so of course I then led her to a tree very special to me- a Silk Floss tree with its extraordinary, prehistoric bark. As you can see, Violet found this interesting:






Hot, we then went into the cool of the Prehistoric Forest, resting beside the Baldwin Lake:





Exploring, Violet discovered an interesting cast-off palm part:



And there were all sorts of other fascinating bits of bark and stuff:


Including a root:


But then, if you are a City Girl, what can beat a mechanical thing like a Water Sprocket?


Or, better still, a water Man-Hole?

Arcadia Woodlands Again

The devastation of Arcadia Woodlands cannot be forgotten: over 200 ancient Native Oaks and Sycamore trees, not to mention the wildlife, lost forever for a load of mud. I previously wrote of how an "umbrella" group was emerging from the destruction. This has now been named Urbanwild Network, a network to enable all environmentalists to help each other in times of crisis and to create a powerful force to make people aware of the magnitude of what is happening to our land.

Learning that two of the four Arcadia Tree sitters, John Quigley and Julia Jaye Posin, were appearing for Arraignment at Alhambra Superior Court, I joined members of this new group to support them. This group included some Santa Monica Treesavers who- apart from being totally shocked by this needless carnage- feel a debt of gratitude to John Quigley, who tirelessly helped to train us during our Ficus Tree emergency. Julia Posin, as a young College student, became a Treesaver at this time, so it was great to see her continuing her battle.

Here are John Quigley and Julia Posin outside the Courthouse:


And here they are together with some supporters and their Attorney Colleen Flynn, left of John. To her left is Camron Stone, a prime mover in trying to save the Woodlands, who has provided us with wonderful photos of them:


They are facing charges of trespassing, disturbing the peace and delaying a peace officer. The arraignment was in fact postponed until March 23rd, when all four activists will need to sign a conflict of interest waiver so that they can be tried as a group.

And all they did was to try and protect us all by protecting our environment...

They have set up a website to keep us informed- click here.

We all feel the importance of keeping the momentum going- making it a worldwide issue, because it IS a worldwide issue, destruction of our wildlands and our invaluable, irreplaceable tree canopies throughout the world.

Just to remind you of what we have lost, two photos- "after and before"- by Camron Stone.



For Camron Stone's full collection click here.

And to experience the full horror of this unbelievable act from one of the Tree sitters, Andrea Bowers', point of view, watch her video here: