A Place of No Return

Do you remember the scene from Pinocchio where the bad guys are recruiting children to go into their Sanctuary? (Yes, I'm going to call it a sanctuary, because it's a place where children are liberated from adults.)

The real problem with the proposition from the fox and the cat was not just that it was a misrepresentation of Pleasure Island as a Sanctuary free from care. The real problem was that it was a Place of No Return."They never come back ... as boys."

I know of a lot of places with a hard sell, but no right of return. They include sanctuaries for chimpanzees and old folks homes. These places are advertised as Pleasure Island where the isolated chimpanzee or elderly person can find friends of his own age or species, but they don't offer a money back guarantee or a free ticket home if you don't like it there. In fact, many old folks homes expect the elderly to sell their house and give them all the money. They have complicated contracts, so you can't just decide to go there as a vacation and then return home when you have had your fill. I have known a few people who went into those homes. They never come back out alive.

By this, of course, I do not mean that the institutions intentionally kill the elders who enter there. Most die of old age. But once you put yourself there, it is very hard to leave. The same is true for chimpanzee sanctuaries.

Once a chimpanzee enters the sanctuary system, he might be sent to a different sanctuary if the one he is in turns out to be a death trap, but he can never leave the sanctuary system. There is no going home. If I were a chimpanzee, I would be afraid to go there for that reason alone, much less what might happen to me during the first introduction to  other inmates.

"If you really respect Bow, you would leave it up to him to choose," my primatologist friend said to me recently. Really? And if I had a little boy like Pinocchio, I suppose you think I should leave it up to him to accept or reject the offer of the fox and the cat? Because after all, that is the libertarian position, right?

Wrong. Which brings me to the recent issue of age of consent that came up in my libertarian circles. Most of us agree that minors do need to be protected by their parents and should not be allowed to make irrevocable decisions about their lives without the help of a parent while they are yet too immature to be emancipated. Most libertarians, even the radical ones, understand that being a human does not automatically equip one to deal with complex, life altering issues from day one. Literate fifteen-year-olds are in most cases still not ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder.

"But if you believe that Bow can read and write, then why won't you let him decide for himself?" For the same reason I would not let any teen sell himself to a place of no return.

The truth is, if there were a place that Bow could go for a fun vacation, I would probably let him go. I would use that time to take a vacation, myself. But I am not shipping him off to Pleasure Island -- because if it were a good place, they would not have a no return policy.

Sanctuary

Does the deer to the left look surprised?

"Oh, no, you can see me!"

The picture posted above is from the video that I took yesterday around lunchtime, which appears in this  blog post:

http://notesfromthepens.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-many-deer-do-you-count.html

Although I was never able to see more than about four deer at a time, it was mainly due to my limited vantage point, standing in the doorway.

In the evening, when the light was fading, I saw the troop again. It is a whole herd of deer that are grazing on my land, and who choose my front yard in particular as a place to congregate.

Can you see Nile the cat watching the deer?

The deer were trying to be quiet, so that I would not notice them. I was trying to be quiet so the deer would not notice me. But Nile the cat was completely uninhibited. He was meowing loudly, startling us all.

Why are there so many deer in my front yard all of a sudden? "Did you put a salt lick out for them?" a friend asked. No, I have done nothing to make this spot attractive.

I am beginning to suspect that it's not what I've done, but what I haven't done. I haven't tried to shoot them. It's deer season now, and they somehow have figured out that my property is a safe zone. So while there is nothing here to attract them, they see it as a temporary sanctuary.

Yes, sanctuary. Not like a chimpanzee sanctuary, to which the chimpanzees are forced to go and from which they are never allowed to depart. But a real sanctuary, to which the deer go of their own free will when they choose to, and depart when they feel safe going elsewhere.

The difference between a sanctuary and a concentration camp is that you are free to come and free to go.

The Price of Freedom

Our life is really good. For me and Bow, our ten acres are plenty good enough, and we don't actually need more. Just maintaining the status quo is all we really want.

Bow has a nice breakfast every morning, takes the time to enjoy it, and eventually he asks to go outside. The sun, coming at us from the east, as it always does, backlights Bow in our early morning snapshots. There is much to see, and Bow takes it all in.

All day long, Bow goes in and out many times a day, enjoys three square meals and a snack, drinks lemonade with blackberries in a glass goblet.

In the evening, when Bow goes to bed, I venture out and chase rabbits and look at the sky over our overgrown pasture.

When the sun finally sets, it does so due west of us, as regular as clockwork.

Could anyone ask for more? Is there more to ask for? The only thing I would want is more of the same. Much more!

We are fine right now, but I am on a fixed income, and  the money that is already there and is mine is being stolen by inflation. This means that every year that same money will buy fewer bananas and apples and grapes. Someday, it may even not be enough to pay the taxes on the land that I own outright, with no debt to anyone. And that worries me.

It does not worry me as much for me and my daughter as it does for Bow. In three years, I will have raised my daughter to adulthood. She will be fine. She will go out into the world and learn to make her own way. I have every confidence in her.

In thirty years, my life expectancy is up, according to the actuarial tables. I suspect that I may outlive that prediction by five to ten years, as I have led a rather quiet life and have not put my health at risk as much as most people. But either way, the actuarial tables are a good estimate of when the journey will be over for me.

And then there is Bow. Not just Bow, but Bow's future line. I want them to live on forever after me. I want that to be one of my contributions to the future of this planet.

The people at the sanctuaries are watching and waiting. Every once in a while they send a recruiter. They want to take Bow. They want to display him to the world and say that they "rescued" him. "Is it too hard for you yet?" they ask. "No." "Well, it will get much harder soon." One person who says he has had thirty years experience with chimpanzees predicts gloom and doom for me and Bow.

But the private owners tell a different story. After about forty years, a chimp tends to mellow out. Taking care of the older ones is actually easier. It becomes less of a struggle and more joyous.

Still I want companionship for Bow and children and grand children, and yes, that would cost a lot. And what it would mostly cost is that awful thing that ever since WWII we are not supposed to admit we want: Lebensraum! Room to live in. Lots and lots of land, thousands of acres per capita.

People say they do not like factory farms. Yet they make it impossible, through regulations of smaller farms, through harassment of private ranchers, like the Bundies, and by regulating dairy products and confiscating cheese, for anybody but large corporate firms to own land to farm on in more traditional ways. They say that they want to help the homeless, but when homeless people start camping out in the national parks and living like hunter-gatherers, they send their Federal troops to dispossess them. They say they want to help chimpanzees, but really if any chimpanzees took up a more natural life on American soil, I bet the conservationists would go after them as an "invasive" species to be eradicated.

Recently, a large plot of land, consisting of over five thousand acres has gone on the market here in Missouri. It used to be several different ranches, but the ranchers' way of life had been destroyed by the laws and regulations that activists favor. The land has a rich history, for it contains Native American burial grounds. But people who give lip service to the Native American lifestyle seldom campaign for the repeal of current laws that make it impossible. The first thing that would need to be repealed would be property taxes.

An incomparable property offering crystal clear spring fed streams, forests, massive bluffs, large caves, fenced and cross-fenced areas for livestock, wide-open ranges and picturesque views, hundreds of miles of riding, hiking and ATV trails, lecture, store, chapel, 1000 horse stalls, 300 campsites and more.

The land features beautiful vistas and acres upon acres of virgin land.

The asking price? Eight point three million dollars. I don't have that kind of money. Neither does anyone that I know. It occurred to me to start a Kickstarter project to purchase the land for Project Bow to make it into a primate sanctuary. But I don't think that any of my well-wishers or all of them together could come up with anywhere near the asking price.

People who are interested in purchasing my books often decide not to because they are too expensive:

http://lesliebard.blogspot.com/2014/07/book-review-theodosia-and-pirates-by.html

It looks like it is expensive. But her earlier books, also expensive, look good. 
I wish that my library had these, but two extensive county library systems did not respond to her name.

My well-wishers are not wealthy people. I can't have unrealistic expectations about what they can give. So I need to count my blessings and make do with what we have, which is admittedly very good. But if any of those pesky recruiters for the sanctuaries comes around and says he wants to "help" me and Bow, I will ask him to buy that property for us. That is the kind of help we could use!

In order for chimpanzees to be self-sufficient, they need plenty of land. Food really does grow on trees and bushes and it does hop about grazing on  the natural plant life. But if chimpanzees are not allowed to own lots of land and are deprived of Lebensraum , then the next best thing for chimpanzees is to cohabit with humans who buy them food in the supermarket. And what we need in order for that to continue to work is for there to be fewer laws and regulations and less taxation and inflation. What we don't need is activism directed against cattle ranchers or independent farmers. And what we especially don't need is a public campaign against primate ownership.

for the recipe follow this link

My philosophy is live and let live. I don't go after people who have a different lifestyle from mine, and all I really ask is that others do the same. Our life here is good. May it continue so.

Enjoying the Bounty

Bow is curious and interested in all things. He sometimes takes off my glasses and examines them very gently and then returns them to me. He has electronics, including his own computer, and he can use them. But he doesn't have to. If he chooses not to, that choice is respected.

Freedom of choice is the key. This is true of electronics as well as people. It's not what gadgets we have that determine whether we are happy, but our own ability to turn things on and off at will. It would be terrible to have a television set that you could not turn off or a roommate that you could not ask to leave when you needed to be alone. It's the lack of privacy and the absence of choice that characterize a true prison.

Sometimes I just wish I could put a dome over all ten acres of my land, so that Bow could enjoy it freely. Our life is pretty good. We don't need more. We just need a better way to take pleasure in what we already have.

The blackberries are starting to ripen, and the deer and the rabbits are raising their families here. I have been seeing a lot more wildlife on my property than I have in years past. Sometimes I tell myself that I am simply more observant than I was before, but that may not be the whole story. If there is more pressure on the wildlife elsewhere, they may be coming here seeking asylum.

Yesterday I picked blackberries and brought them to Bow in the outer pen to eat.

Usually, when I bring Bow blackberries, he picks them out of my hand one by one and pops them into his mouth.

But this time he was impatient, so instead he brought his mouth to the blackberries.

He put his lips over the bunch of blackberries in my hand and siphoned them gently into his mouth.

It took  very little time.

Before I knew it, the palm of my hand was empty, and Bow's mouth was full of blackberries.

And then Bow leaned back and relaxed and enjoyed a fistful of blackberries swirling around in his mouth all at once.

Someday, I'd like to see Bow free to wander out there among the blackberry bushes, picking the ripe fruit by hand or by mouth, whichever suits him best.

The other animals on my land are currently enjoying free run of the property. There were two rabbits in particular yesterday that I saw all over the place, romping around and hopping from place to place. They were inseparable.

Even when they knew they had been spotted, they stayed stock still and let me snap their picture.

In the evening, at twilight, after I returned from taking the garbage to the dump, a family of deer jumped over my internal road from the pasture to the lawn and from there into the woods. One of them was smaller than the others, and they actually stopped to let it catch up. But I was not able to get a picture, and just then some rabbits hopped in front of my car on the way from the lawn to the pasture. I had to slow down to let them pass. My property is becoming a high traffic area for wildlife.

As I approached the garage I saw those two inseparable rabbits again, and I got out of the car to film them. The dogs, who are not as free as the rabbits, were barking in protest.

I think that my land can appropriately be seen as a wildlife sanctuary, not because any legal action has been taken to label it as such, but because the wildlife see it that way. A sanctuary is a place where one seeks asylum by coming there of one's own free will, and where one is free to leave also, when one wants to. A sanctuary is not a place to which other people have decided you have to go and  from which you cannot escape once you get there. That would be more like a prison.

Children and  owned dogs have less freedom than rabbits. Dogs have to stay in their master's yard, which is the price of being cared for. Sometimes, strays do have more freedom. My eyes were opened to this when I lived in Taiwan. I admired the strays of Tamsui. The price of freedom, of course, is that no one is looking out for you. But the price of being "safe" is that you have no freedom. This is also the difference between a domesticated and a wild rabbit.

Are you domesticated? Or are you free? Which would you rather be? Every individual has a different answer. Each has a different path to tread. We can no more force someone to be free than we can hope to domesticate someone who does not wish to be.

Can Bow decide where he wants to be once he grows up? I would like to think that he will be able to make that decision. But whatever decision he makes, it should not be irrevocable. Human grown ups make mistakes, too. Sometimes they take a job that they do not like. Sometimes they enter a marriage that turns out to be not so viable over the long term. Sometimes they buy a house that they cannot afford. The good thing about being free is that you can quit your job, divorce your spouse, sell your house, and even move to a different country if the regime in your own country becomes too oppressive. Mistakes can be corrected. The rabbits and the deer, the turtles and the snakes are free to come here, but they are also free to go.  Doesn't a chimpanzee deserve the same freedom?