Arrival!

We made it! We arrived at the Farm Sanctuary after an easy drive and had a brief orientation and tour of the farm. The orientation included a short film about the history of the Farm Sanctuary (started in New York) and stories of the first animals that inspired them. Then we visited the cows, goats, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, sheep, donkeys and the 34 new young ducks that are here. Most importantly was meeting the goats for whom we will be building the jungle gym. Each animal has a name here and when that animal dies, their name is also retired. The goats don't seem to know our icebreakers so we may be challenged to learn their names by the end of the week. Overall, they seem only mildly interested in our presence, but scratching them between the eyes seems to get their approval. Tonight we settled into the church in Chico and got organized for the week. We ended the night with a reflection time that included looking at the pile of trash that we genereated during the day on our trip. We decided to use the trash as reminder to connect with the Earth this week. It also inspired us to set up trash, recycling and composting bins for ourselves this week. We also made the word Earth out of our trash as a reminder this week to consider the impact of our choices this week on the environment.