SASHA Farm, October, 2017...

We've been lucky enough to be able to visit SASHA Farm since my son was a wee one with the Chicago Vegan Family Network and it remains one of the highlights of our year. Even at 15, our son still looks forward to our annual SASHA visit. Being able to interact with these innocent beings who have found freedom and sanctuary is so enriching to the vegan spirit and to see them in such a beautiful environment where they can just live their lives without fear or exploitation is gratifying beyond measure.

We met up with some of our vegan family crew and were able to bring along two additional young friends who are vegan. As soon as you pull up and hear the roosters crowing, see the sheep peacefully grazing, you know you are in a special kind of place. In all, it was a beautiful day, though, as always, bittersweet. Heartwarming to know these animals have found their way to sanctuary and heartbreaking to think of the billions more - no less full of personality and a capacity for pain than these individuals - who live their short lives, day-in and day-out, in the kind of sheer horror few of us could imagine. For now, though, we will keep sharing their pictures and their stories, hoping that humanity one day stops inflicting the needless brutalities we inflict upon them. Maybe then we'll begin to find peace? One can hope.