CHAPTER NINE

By the time our first spring rolled around, we were finally getting into the groove of things as far as country life was concerned. I couldn’t wait for the winter weather to break and to finally let the fire go out in the house—it had been going around the clock all winter. When we first got to the farm, I thought having a wood-burning stove would be amazing. We had tons of land with tons of wood, so it seemed perfect. We could heat our home for free all winter!

Yeah… that was just another thing we couldn’t have been more wrong about. Sure, there’s more wood on the property than we could ever burn. But the idea that it would be free failed to factor in the process of turning a tree into fuel: getting the firewood out of the forest, chopping it up into manageable pieces, stacking it to let it properly dry, and then finally bringing it into the house is a lot of work. And I’m not saying that because we actually did it. We were clever enough to figure out that we wouldn’t be able to do it ourselves once we started to think about how to make it happen.

Despite the enormous resources outside our door, honestly, we ended up ordering the vast majority of our firewood. And it was superexpensive—not because of the cost of the wood itself, but because of the amount we used. We went through more than nineteen face cords of wood. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details, but you could basically build a four-foot-high solid log fence around the typical suburban property with the amount we used. It was madness. It came stacked on pallets that we had dropped off beside our driveway. We’d move it from there to our front deck, and then into the dining room, where the woodstove was. Every single piece was moved by hand, multiple times. Needless to say, the novelty of that cozy stove wore off really quickly.

The other thing I was really looking forward to with spring was that we would finally be able to make some serious progress on the property. We had used the winter to get ourselves settled, and we’d slowly started bringing in extra hands to help. But spring and summer would see our official grand opening and tour days, along with volunteers arriving to clear pastures, build fences, and clean up the farm. Our plans were about to start coming together really quickly, and the closer we got to that first collective workday, the more nervous we became.

Before we moved, Derek and I had worked together, but it was really just the two of us, plus maybe one other person who helped with bookkeeping or my real estate paperwork. I’m an idea person, not a paperwork person. The transition to the farm had been amazing, but now we found ourselves awaiting the arrival of literally thousands of people over the course of the summer, and we had no idea what to do with them. Managing yourself is easy enough. It takes discipline, but it’s not rocket science. Managing large teams of people of various backgrounds and skill sets—that’s an entirely different ball game.

We also had to start planning the tour aspect of the sanctuary schedule. We barely knew our way around the farm ourselves—it felt like everywhere we looked, the final layout remained just an idea waiting to come to fruition. There was still so much more to do. So what were we going to show everybody? What were we going to say?

We tried to come up with a very simple itinerary for visitors. It would include the barn, a walk through the woods, and the old farm road, which serviced the other fifty acres of our farm. The farm had once been a one-hundred-acre property, but sadly, it had been divided before we purchased it. Either way, the old road was still there, so we figured the tour would use that to get to our back property line and then would cut across the top of the pasture behind our barn, and finally go down the middle to where it started. It covered only about 20 percent of the property, but at least it was a start. That said, actually using the farm road remained just an idea at that stage. It hadn’t been used in decades, so it had basically reverted to being part of the forest again. Clearing it became one of the first projects we would do on Get Dirty Day, the first official, public event at the sanctuary.

Get Dirty Day was a perk we created during the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. It offered Esther’s fans the opportunity to join us for the very first public workday at the farm. We had more than a hundred people registered to join us, with some arriving from as far away as Australia, to help get the farm ready for opening day in July.

Derek and I always knew it was a must to be cautious around the animals. Everyone has heard horror stories about people being injured while working with large animals. In fact, we’d had a visit from the manager of one of the most renowned farm sanctuaries in the world, and she told us a story about how her favorite cow—they were best friends, she said—almost killed her one night in the barn when the cow lost her mind about something and freaked out. Luckily, the manager was able to slip out between the fence boards; she narrowly escaped without injury. But this was coming from someone who literally could write the book on caring for farm animals. I believe she knows more than most people who teach at vet schools. So if something like that can happen to her, it can happen to anyone, with any animal.

Similarly, we had our fair share of animals with attitude, so we knew we’d need to watch them quite closely as the number of people coming through the property started to increase. A particular one to watch was Diablo the goat. He had come to us after a zoo had a fire in its barn exhibit and the managers decided not to rebuild. That left all their farm animals without a home. They contacted us, and we agreed to bring in three goats, two sheep, and two Flemish giant rabbits. The rabbits moved to Bunny Town, while the goats and sheep joined our existing goat family. Diablo got on fine with all of his pasture-mates, but he wasn’t a big fan of people. He would act all cuddly and rub up against you, and then he’d whip his head back and try to impale you with his formidable horns. They’re about twelve inches long, curving downward toward his back, and both are sharp enough to be very intimidating, especially because they’re attached to a two-hundred-pound goat.

All the animals have characters and personalities; you just need to learn what to look for. I love Diablo, and I often go into his pasture for a wrestling match. I swear he loves to play, but you can tell when he goes from having friendly fun to fuming and being ready to actually hurt you. He’s like a lot of house cats that way. One second, the sweet kitty is contentedly purring away; the next, she’s trying to flay the skin off your forearm with her claws. Not so worrisome with a small house cat, but imagine if Furry McFurryface suddenly transformed into a mountain lion.

A few months after Diablo and his friends arrived, we got a call for two other sheep that had been found in a “dead pile” at the end of a farmer’s driveway not far from where we live. In other words, a passerby noticed some movement within a pile of other babies that weren’t so lucky. She stopped immediately, found these two babies, put them in her car, and took them home to be rehabilitated. Seeing them now, it’s hard to believe they were ever discarded as waste. Their names are Moose and Yammy. They’re both nearly black, with almost silver streaks in their wool, like salt-and-pepper hair. They are two of the sweetest sheep we’ve ever met. Moose, in particular, loves affection and attention; he’s always coming up to people when they enter his field. He’s by far the most social of all our sheep, and his is one of the only pastures we could let people into without being nervous that someone might get hurt.

At least, that seemed to be the case.

One day we had a tour group going through, and out of nowhere, Moose decided anyone under about four feet tall was not welcome in his pasture. He approached a little girl and sniffed her, just looking all cute as he always does. Then he casually took a few steps back. And then he rammed her!

I’m a terrible person, so my immediate instinct was to laugh hysterically, although I did simultaneously run over to make sure the girl was okay. Fortunately for me, someone else was laughing even harder, and it was the little girl’s mother, who had realized her daughter was totally fine, if a bit embarrassed. After the ramming, Moose just casually wandered off as if nothing had happened. It blew my mind. Sweet, gentle Moose could be a linebacker for the Buffalo Bills? Who knew?

And this wasn’t a one-time occurrence. It has since happened a number of times, always with small children. We’re trying to figure out if it’s a girl or a boy thing, but Moose doesn’t seem to care about that. When he sees a child, he just rams full-tilt. Which is funny to witness, but not so enjoyable for the small person. Moose is normally a very sweet sheep who always comes up to the fence and wants to be petted. But he’s got no tolerance for short people. So far, the only common denominator we’ve found is height, so if you’re under four feet tall and plan to visit, you’ll want to stay clear of Moose.

We also have a rooster named Davey Cockett, and there’s no point in trying to sugarcoat it: He’s a jerk. Davey hates everyone. He will chase you and not stop, often going on for much longer than you ever anticipated running. Just when you think he’s gone and you slow down… you find out he’s right on your heels. I’m not ashamed to admit that I am more afraid of the roosters than any of the other animals on our farm. I’d rather run from a pig any day, because roosters are like tiny ninjas with feathers, and they’re on you before you even know what’s happening. They jump up and use their legs to kick you a thousand times in the span of a half second. Their whole objective is to stab you with their little claws (called spurs) on the back of their legs, and it hurts like a bugger when they get you. It’s literally a blur. I pretty much live in fear of Davey Cockett. As we learn every animal’s personality, we discover not only how to deal with them but also which ones can and can’t be allowed to greet our guests on open days.

When Get Dirty Day was just around the corner, the excitement was really building. I couldn’t wait to finally get some of the bigger projects we had planned underway. Looking at the aerial photo of the farm, walking around, and making plans is fun. But there’s nothing quite like actually seeing those plans start to come together. We spent all winter coming up with ideas and deciding what to do first. All the imagining and plotting was enjoyable, but I was ready to amp things up the way we knew only a hundred pairs of hands could do. Plus, we’d have a few extra volunteers on hand to help, as well as the board of directors. Derek and I had planned the day as best we could. We made a list of projects we wanted to tackle and were feeling good about everything as the time neared. We also had been hyping it online.

It had been only a few months since we’d moved to the farm, but it felt for us as if a lifetime had gone by. The whirlwind hadn’t calmed down at all, and our online supporters were just as excited as we were to see us really get down to work. Then, before we knew it, it was the night before Get Dirty Day.

It had been just over two years since we’d started the Facebook page, and some of the Get Dirty participants had been following our adventure from the very beginning. But this would be the first time most of them met Esther in person, the first time they didn’t need to rely on Facebook to see her.

As cars started to arrive in the morning, the excitement level was through the roof. One of the first people to pull up saw Esther and me walking into our backyard. The woman was so excited, she literally jumped from her car and started running toward us as the car—which was still in Drive—rolled onward. She realized what she had done and stopped for a second, looking first at her car, then at us, before she frantically ran back to the car and slammed it into Park. I nearly died laughing.

Derek had come out of the mobile home just as it was all playing out. He walked over to me with a look of total disbelief on his face. We knew people had developed very meaningful relationships with Esther via her social media pages, but we hadn’t realized the level of celebrity status she had garnered with them. She was the Britney Spears of the porcine world, and she could literally move people to tears simply by brushing her snout against their pant legs. Sometimes she’d move me that way too, I must admit, but Esther is my baby. I’d be sitting with her and I’d let my mind wander… and before I knew it, I’d be in tears, thinking about her lost pig family or the things we did before we knew Esther. I’m sure I’ll always feel guilty for not going vegan sooner, and I have a feeling that’s a big part of why Esther makes others emotional too. She becomes a connection point for people. We’ve seen in countless messages written to us that even a package of bacon at the grocery store can be enough to bring Esther’s image to mind for some people. It’s the whole idea of giving food a face and putting a living animal at the front of someone’s mind—something that typically gets ignored altogether. I never gave a second thought to what I was seeing at the grocery store before Esther came along; now when I happen to catch sight of packages of meat, I see nothing but faces.

All morning we watched people get out of their cars with the most incredible looks on their faces when they saw Esther for the first time. Some cried, some laughed, and some stood silently and just watched. It was an amazing experience, and it really drove home the impact Esther was having on other people’s lives, not just our own.

We mingled for about an hour before we started rounding everybody up to get working. Then the initial excitement gave way to focused determination to get the job done. Everybody scattered into teams, and we each set off to handle our respective jobs.

Derek and I floated around to oversee everything and make sure we spent a little bit of time with everybody, as hosts are expected to do. We realized almost immediately that work slowed dramatically whenever we got involved, because everybody wanted to chat. To be fair, I’m the worst when it comes to that—I could talk the ear off a dead man, and I’m just as excited to meet everyone else as they are to meet us and, obviously, Esther, who was the main attraction.

One thing we knew we needed was a quarantine pen. We wanted to have a place away from the main barn that could hold new arrivals and also a stall in the garage for emergency medical situations. It had been in the plan since day one, so we wanted to get it up and running ASAP.

Derek and I headed over toward the garage, where a group of people were cleaning up what would be our new quarantine pen. One of our volunteers—Ted, the guy who makes Esther’s T-shirts, in fact—was pulling up an old tree root. Suddenly, the root snapped, and he went tumbling backward, landing hard on one shoulder. For a few moments, we weren’t too concerned, because he didn’t seem to be hurt. He stood up, looking a little embarrassed—even though he had no reason to be—and played it off as if it were nothing. But then he tried to raise his arm, and that’s when we knew it was serious. He’d broken his arm. We were only a few hours into our very first workday, and already we had a broken bone. It wasn’t pretty. Ted tried to downplay the injury, but of course we sent him to the hospital.

The injury drove home how large the task as well as the risk we had taken on really were. We’d put everything on the line, and in that moment, we felt like we had no idea what we were doing. We’d never had a serious injury to anyone until this moment. Now we were worried about potentially being sued or found negligent because we really weren’t qualified to be operating a farm.

It’s not that we hadn’t been taking things seriously before, but this was the first time we’d had the general public visit the farm, and that’s extremely different from having a bunch of friends over to help you move. Plus, you hear about crazy lawsuits all the time. Didn’t somebody sue McDonald’s for burning themselves on hot coffee? And win? It’s ridiculous what people sue for these days. Considering the situation at the farm, there were so many potential risks. We had people repairing stone walls, pulling out stumps, using tools, and crossing rough terrain. It seemed to me like an ambulance-chasing lawyer’s dream. I mean, we didn’t think Esther’s true fans had any such ulterior motives, but it’s not like you can completely vet everyone who offers to volunteer at the farm—for all we knew, there could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing somewhere in the mix. We also felt sometimes as if we had an extra target on our backs because of Esther’s online presence and what we at Esther the Wonder Pig stand for as an organization.

We’ve received a few threatening messages since this all began, some scary enough that we called the police. There’s no denying that Esther poses a threat to the livelihood of certain people in the animal-agriculture industry. We’ve even been blocked on Twitter by the Manitoba Pork Council—maybe Rosie O. has a friend there or something—and a few other very large agricultural organizations, including some government-run agencies. I find this crazy. I typically don’t engage much with those types of organizations, but I felt I had no choice after a certain situation came up in Manitoba.

In the summer of 2015, a pig escaped from a slaughterhouse and was found wandering the streets. It somehow became a huge news story, and of course the vegan community pleaded for the pig to be released to a sanctuary. Derek and I got involved as well, making phone calls to the appropriate people, including the Manitoba Pork Council, but we were all unsuccessful. The pig, who came to be known as Mercy, was quietly sent to slaughter—even though the authorities told the public that she was receiving medical care. In truth, they never had any intention of letting her live, no matter how hard she fought for her freedom.

Even before Esther came along, I remember seeing stories of animals escaping from slaughterhouses and running around the city. I always found myself cheering them on, as so many people do. I’d be hoping someone would catch them and whisk them off to a safe-forever home where they’d live out their days in some beautiful rolling pasture. But even then, I managed to keep myself from thinking about the ones who didn’t escape, or the ones who had no one cheering them on.

But the Mercy situation was different. When they sent Mercy away, I kept engaging on the Manitoba Pork Council’s social media pages in a very Esther way. When they’d tweet something advertising pork loin or bacon, I’d post a picture of Esther beside Shelby or one of the cats, along with something rather benign such as “Why love one but eat the other?” I remained gentle. I was never rude or aggressive. But it was enough to rub them the wrong way, so they blocked me from seeing or responding to their tweets. The animal-agriculture industry relies on marketing to keep people feeling good about consuming their products, so the thought of people starting to think about farm animals the same way we think about companion animals must be terrifying for them.

It’s that whole situation, along with the messages we got as a result of speaking up so much about it, that really started to concern me about Esther’s security. We already walked with her everywhere she went, but the world is a crazy place, and it doesn’t take too much time watching the news to know people do some truly senseless things. With so much to be aware of, we knew we had to make sure we covered ourselves. Our insurance adjuster came out to the farm, and we purchased a comprehensive policy on the property—and on ourselves.

As time went on, we hired a staff member to help us keep up with orders from the Esther Store, and additional regular volunteers started to work their way into our daily lives. It was all wonderful, but it took us awhile to get used to it.

Every morning, Derek’s favorite thing is to take a quick soak in our hot tub, which helps ease a sore back he’s had for years. He also happens to prefer doing this ritual without a bathing suit—not necessarily something our volunteers want to see first thing in the morning (not that I have any complaints). He always says, “It’s just a penis, who cares?” And at the end of the day, he’s right: they all look more or less the same. But we still couldn’t take the chance of offending people, which meant adjusting his hot-tub schedule to make sure he was done by the time people started to arrive. It’s a minor detail, but it was one of the first things we needed to change about our life at the sanctuary. Personal time was still personal, but it could be interrupted at any moment.

We also had to make sure we were ready whenever people started to arrive, so we could give them instructions for the day and keep everyone on track. The more people who got involved, the more we started to hear everyone else’s thoughts on how things should be done. Having a lot of people around can be a blessing and a curse, both from a management perspective and because you can quickly get into a “too many cooks” situation. Certain helpers would start expressing concerns about a fence or how big the pasture was for B.J. and Escalade. It didn’t matter what got done, there was always somebody—usually at one of the public workdays—who thought they knew a better way.

But it wasn’t always about what we did. Sometimes it was what we didn’t do.

Take our first barn cat, Catt Damon. (Yes, you have to love puns if you want to love us.) Catt Damon came to us via the local Humane Society, and like the inspiration for his name, he was incredibly handsome: he was a large longhair with silver-and-black fur. He was quite affectionate and took his job as barn manager very seriously. He slept in a little cat hut in the feed room and would poke his little head out as soon as you visited in the morning. His food bowl was right outside his hut, so sometimes he’d just lean out and eat while he was still in bed.

We all loved Catt Damon, but one volunteer, Justin, took a particular fancy to him, and as time went on, he got more and more distraught that Catt was a barn cat. He was upset that we hadn’t brought him into the house, and he wasn’t subtle about his feelings. Almost every time we saw him, he’d say something passive-aggressive about it. And Justin was not shy in the sass department. He’d walk around with Catt in his arms when he was heading to lunch or he’d just carry him wherever he went after he’d finished his volunteer chores.

Derek and I spoke with Justin about it a few times. We reassured him that Catt Damon had everything he could ever need, including a safe barn where we closed him in every night. It didn’t help. On at least one occasion, we found Justin in tears about it. He was a very sensitive man. We tried so hard to reassure him that Catt was all set, but nothing seemed to put his mind at ease, no matter how hard we tried. As far as we were concerned, Catt was safe. He had what I’m sure most cats would consider a badass house. It was huge, he could explore wherever he wanted, and he got attention from people constantly. He was living large.

A few weeks went by, and then one morning we went out to the barn and Catt Damon was nowhere to be found. We searched high and low, shaking cat treats in the woods around the barn. We looked everywhere. We didn’t freak out right away, because he had taken himself on a walk once before, and it had been a few hours before we’d found him: he’d gone into the woods and climbed high up in a tree. So this time we thought maybe he’d done the same thing—but a search of the nearby woods brought no signs of Catt Damon.

Later that day, we got an email from Justin. He told us his schedule had changed and that, unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to volunteer regularly anymore. Pretty coincidental timing. We didn’t think much of it until the following morning, when we still hadn’t been able to find Catt Damon. Derek was soaking his back in the hot tub when he looked at me and said, “You don’t think Justin stole him, do you?”

I hadn’t thought of it until that moment, but the wheels immediately started turning in my head. I said, “He wouldn’t do that… would he?”

To this day, we don’t know what happened to Catt Damon, but his disappearance and Justin’s simultaneous departure seem like too great a coincidence not to be the reasonable explanation. And when Justin said he “wouldn’t be able to volunteer regularly anymore,” what he actually meant was he was never going to return, so… you do the math.

It was hard enough to think of Catt as being gone, but the thought of him being snagged by a predator in the woods or getting lost somewhere was a much worse scenario than the idea of his having been taken by somebody who loved him. I’d rather think he’s safe and happy with Justin than any of the alternatives, so that’s what I do.

The learning curve we had with Esther and managing our volunteers was huge, but it was nothing compared to what we needed to learn about running the sanctuary. Creating a sustainable sanctuary was the whole idea, and that included being absolutely certain we had all the insurance and legalities in place to protect us and the organizations we were creating. The “broken bone before brunch” incident also made us far more aware of what heavy tools we employed while working on the property, and who would be allowed to use them. For example, no handing chain saws to volunteers. Instead, we asked for people who owned their own tools to bring them along and to do specific jobs with them. We started being much more precise in giving directions, and we kept a close eye on the volunteers to make sure they didn’t push themselves too hard.

It’s easy to forget that many people don’t do farm-type labor much these days. Hell, in this digital age, most of us don’t do any type of manual labor much. We try to offer various jobs—some super easy, some more strenuous—and let people decide what they want to do. And every workday we learn something new, so we’re constantly adjusting how we do things so as to keep everyone safe while still making their day fun and memorable. We want to start helping people expand upon the relationship they have with Esther through the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary and all of its residents.

Esther is just the key that opens the door. Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary is what helps us drive our message home as people realize that every pig is like Esther. Every cow, every chicken, every single animal has just as much personality as a puppy. That’s what we want everyone to know, and getting people to come back time and again is how we’re going to achieve that.