Yes, actually, veganism is a little bit about self denial but it's not all bad news!

 Look what we get to eat!! Please come and shop at our darling little shop- buy from vegans!!
 We are at www.veganation.co.uk and we are offering 10% off all orders over £10.00- just because that's the sort of people we are..!

Exciting New Product for the Shop!

 We ordered more gorgeous things for our vegan shop today (visit us at www.veganation.co.uk and also listed one of our favourite vegan products- gluten flour!!
  Wheat gluten is the stretchy chewy bit of the wheat, left after the starch has been removed. I have known vegans who have told me of making seitan themselves from wholewheat flour- and believe me, it didn't make easy listening: hours and hours of hovering over the sink, rinsing and kneading, rinsing and kneading, rinsing and kneading.... just terrible!

Cows at Hillside Animal Sanctuary

  So, someone invented robots, or something, to make it for us, and relieved of the burden of all that rinsing and kneading, we were free to discover art and music and occasionally sit down with a hot drink and read a book- actually, no-that never happens!
  Anyway, we really, really like seitan- you can do so many things with it including the most sublime slow simmered pot roast that takes hours and hours to make but is SO worth it!
  I never liked that kind of thing when I ate meat and all that yucky stuff as a child- I always felt strongly about animals and meat was really just too recognisably made of body parts for me, and I was really freaked out by things like gristle- I still don't even know what it actually is, and, before anyone helpfully tells me, I don't WANT to know, thanks.

SUPPER!

  We eat really lovely food as vegans- I have never eaten such amazing food and such an enormous variety of foods: certainly not back when I ate meat (I wish I'd been raised vegan!) and not when I was vegetarian either. As vegans we definitely have to be a bit more creative and inventive in the kitchen, but being knowledgeable about and very involved in the food that we eat seems right and natural to us anyway. So, we make our own pizzas, soups, stews, pies, pasta sauces- all good healthy food with lots of natural colour and we certainly don't feel deprived in any way, but even if I DID feel deprived, I'd do it anyway. As vegans we are very keen to spread the message that veganism is not all about self denial and it's true, it mostly isn't, but I can remember before there was a decent cheese substitute and I really missed cheese!

Pig at Hillside Animal Sanctuary

  I think the point that I'm trying to make is that being vegan is brilliant; it's the right thing to do. It's what has to be done to stop the exploitation and killing of so many wonderful creatures (and yes, vegetarians, your diet IS responsible for the deaths of animals- the grieving mother of the veal calf is a dairy cow) and we do it gladly, And the food is excellent and we love cooking vegan, but I just want to make the point (I seem to be rambling,but there IS a point!) that we aren't doing it for the food, we're doing it for the animals.

Please support us by shopping at the cutest little vegan shop in the world at www.veganation.co.uk

Postcard- nothing else to say, really.

 

 I got this in the post today- it's very powerful, isn't it, the way the cow is looking out of the postcard at you and asking for help. Please go vegan!
  We have someone coming for lunch today; a very special person who, sadly, eats meat- we are going to give him our  delicious vegan Spaghetti Bolognese and then Rhubarb Crumble and lovely (mastitis-pus free) vegan cream!

Motherly Love!

   So lovely to see a mother cow feeding her calf- they are at Hillside Animal Sanctuary  ( hillside.org.uk ) where VegaNation ( www.veganation.co.uk ) had a works outing on Sunday! 

  Interesting to notice that this mother does not have that horrible sign of the overworked, downtrodden calf-less dairy cow- an enormous swollen udder ballooning out underneath her- she has her calf suckling and so produces exactly as much milk as her calf needs and no more! She's looks well fed (of course she does- she's at Hillside!) again, very different from the  gaunt, boney physique of the typical dairy cow who is producing milk (to feed her insatiable human babies) far beyond what is natural or healthy for her- the amount of milk that modern dairy cows produce at peak lactation is more than TEN TIMES the amount that she would normally be producing to feed her calf.  Compare the Hillside cow to the dairy cow below in this picture from Animal Aid.

 This is why we are vegan not vegetarian- I breast fed my own children and the thought of what cows go through- having their babies taken away at birth (and if they are male, shot)  and then their breast milk stolen from for the next ten months whilst they are pregnant with their next calf,  is absolutely unbearable. Cows form very strong attachments to their calves and at Hillside you can see cows very much bonded with their adult calves; I don't think that anyone can even imagine the suffering that dairy cows endure before they are killed and their prematurely worn out bodies used for cheap meat products such as burgers.

“The  dairy cow is exposed to more abnormal physiological demands than any other farm animal. She is the supreme example of an overworked mother.”

– Professor John Webster, Bristol University’s Veterinary Science Department


Professor John Webster, in The Welfare of Dairy Cattle, states, “The amount of work done by the cow in peak lactation is immense…To achieve a comparably high work rate a human would have to jog for about 6 hours a day, every day.”

We picked and we pickled!

 We had a friend coming over for a vegan tea party in the afternoon so we were meant to be tidying up a bit, but somehow we got sidetracked into bottling vegetables from the garden. We'd planned to do the whole thing yesterday but discovered too late, after we'd started yesterday, that we should, in fact, have started the whole thing the day before (damn-no time machine- where's our friend Karl when we need him?) as after the gherkins have been sprinkled with salt they needed to be left for 24 hours, which meant we had to do it today. I guess that it would occasionally help to read through all the instructions ahead of time, but we never do AND WE NEVER WILL!

 Anyway, our seven year old did a great job pickling the organic gherkins that she grew herself- she was so proud! And then our other two pickled some home grown beetroots and purple carrots from the garden. The purple carrots are amazing; we'd definitely grow them again- they actually stained the children's tongues and teeth purple for a while after eating them! We also picked a batch of beans- I think you'll agree that they are very pretty beans!
  We managed to extract two pounds from our friend by getting her to buy two guesses at the name of the soft toy we got from Hillside Animal Sanctuary- it's a great idea: we paid them £5.00 for the soft toy which arrived with its list of thirty possible names and its ACTUAL name in a sealed envelope. Then we have to charge everybody we know £1.00 per guess. When all the guesses have been bought,the true name is revealed and the person who guessed the correct name wins the soft toy. We then have £30.00 for Hillside, out of which we may, if we choose, take back our £5.00, or just ask for another soft toy and do it all again. We've sold nine guesses out of thirty so far, so if anyone else out there in the U.K.wants to have a guess, let me know and I'll tell you which names are left!!

  After our friend went home we had Tomato and Pinenut Pasta- one of our favourites. It started out as an Amanda Grant recipe but according to the code of conduct adhered to by knitters ( I have this on good authority from Paula of funky knitting blog Purple Cricket) since we've made at least three changes to the recipe it must be considered ours by now! It looked strangely like octopus tentacles, but anyway, it was delicious and was that rare thing, a dish which everyone ate- ok, WELL ACTUALLY, someone left the tomatoes and  someone else left the pinenuts.. sigh.

Open Day at Hillside Animal Sanctuary

We had a family day out at Hillside Animal Sanctuary; it's always a big event for us because we are all very eager to see Fergus the Highland Bull; we spearheaded a campaign to save Fergus in 2009 ( a very short campaign because we succeeded very quickly- hooray for Veggie Power!), when he was only two years old and had been living at Wandlebury Country Park in Cambridgeshire, with a herd of Highlands, rather charmlessly described by the Head Ranger as 'lawnmowers'. They'd decided that they didn't require this particular lawn mower any more and arranged to have him slaughtered. We found this out after getting chatting to the Ranger and were horrified. Luckily, at the eleventh hour, the trust who owned both Fergus and the country park were deluged with polite but outraged emails and 'phone calls, they agreed to spare Fergus. To read more about Fergus, you can read his special page 'Who is Fergus?' on our website at www.veganation.co.uk .

 Fergus now lives very happily at Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk with over 1000 other rescued animals; you can visit their website at www.hillside.org.uk.
So, it's a very special thing for us to go and visit Fergus; it was very moving today, just sitting in the sun watching him graze, peering at us through his glorious curly fringe, looking so HUGE- he's filled out and matured a lot in the two and a half years that he's been at Hillside. He looks such a combination of dangerousness- his horns are absolutely huge now, and complete innocence- all Fergus wants is to be left in peace to graze and sunbathe with his family- it's all ANY cow wants, and Fergus and his small herd really are the lucky ones- they have a wonderful, caring home for the whole of their lives, thanks to Wendy Valentine and all the caring people who help her at Hillside. We took Fergus some purple carrots that we had grown in the garden and he seemed to really enjoy them- in fact when Candyfloss, one of his ladies, finally wondered over to see what he was eating, he'd finished up the whole bunch!
  We had a lovely day- it is such a rare thing for us to be able to take our children out somewhere and be able to buy them an ice cream cone! All the food available at Hillside on open days is vegan, and described as 'animal friendly' so a lot of people probably got their first taste of vegan cheese and soya milk yesterday as Wendy told us that most of the people who come to the open days are not vegan or vegetarian..
  If you'd like to help look after rescued victims of intensive farming, the few survivors of this awful industry, then please make a purchase at our vegan shop www.veganation.co.uk, from which we donate 2% of all profits to Hillside- and if you buy a packet of lemon jelly crystals this week, we'll donate an extra 25p to Fergus's carrot fund!  Or you can donate directly on Hillside's website.

Twin Squabs!

  We took a day off from VegaNation, our lovely vegan shop, (find us at www.veganation.co.uk )and were supposed to be meeting our vegan friend Chrissy and her son at a country park today but she emailed us an S.O.S.this morning asking for advice about a baby bird she'd found in her garden. We have a lot of experience of looking after different kinds of wildlife and used to work in an animal shelter that took in a lot of wildlife.
  Chrissy had found a baby bird on her lawn yesterday and had managed to perk it up a bit by giving it homemade rehydrating fluid and also homeopathic remedies. It survived the night, and when she looked on the internet she realised that it was a baby collared dove, which led her to believe that the parents might be about as there had always been collared doves in the garden. There was nest material on the ground and Chrissy assumed that the nest had collapsed and the baby had fallen out.
 Chrissy  put the baby bird into a hanging basket and then climbed up a step ladder carrying the baby in the basket to hang it up in the Leylandii tree where the nest seemed to have fallen from. When she got to the top of the stepladder she realised that the hook on the hanging basket wasn't big enough so she had to climb down again, enlarge the hook and climb back up again!  A bit later, she reported that two collared doves were now showing an interest in the basket and peering into it and when she peeped later, the baby

 looked settled and content so had obviously been fed.
  So that was that. Then a bit later Chrissy was hanging some washing on the line when she suddenly spotted the baby bird on the lawn again. She was horrified, and, not able to imagine how the baby had got out of the basket, was having awful visions of the parents having turfed the baby out of the nest. She picked up the baby, made sure it was ok and climbed up the ladder to put it back, only to discover that the baby was actually still in there and what she was holding was a second baby!
  She put the second baby in with the first and they settled down together. Even though they've each had a fall, they seem all right, and it's bound to be reassuring for them to be together. Baby pigeons and doves are such sweet little creatures; we have looked after quite a few of them ourselves over the years and we love them.
   Chrissy did really well, and because the squabs seemed settled in the basket, she was able to come with her little boy and meet us after all and the children had a run about and a paddle in the country park. When he got home from work, Chrissy's partner climbed up the ladder and managed to hook the hanging basket up higher in the tree to try and make sure it is safe from cats.
 As well as caring very much for animals, Chrissy  cares about humans too! Like us, Chrissy is an alternative health practitioner; she is a Herbalist,  Iridologist and a Reiki Master and has been helping keep the people of Cambridge healthy for over 15 years! And now she has two gorgeous twin squabs to keep an eye on!  Lots of positive thoughts for them and hoping that everything goes smoothly for them from now on. You can find Chrissy at www.natureworking.co.uk.