Rescuing Animals from Climate Change with Kathy Stevens

[00:00:11] Jasmin Singer: Well, I am a big fan of yours, and I miss living so close to the sanctuary and just being able to see you every now and again, but we'll make it happen. We want to talk about a very specific thing today, but for those who aren't familiar with the sanctuary, because every now and then we'll get like, you know, we get new vegans who are just learning the terrain.

Can you start out by telling us where you are, how long you've been there? Just an overview.

[00:00:38] Kathy Stevens: Sure thing, we are in the Hudson Valley, two hours north of Manhattan, and we have been here since 2001. We've been on this property, this formerly very forlorn, abandoned, kind of derelict space, that we created one barn, one pasture at a time, since 2003. And we take in 11 species of farmed animals and do what all good sanctuaries do, to love them to pieces.

And then watch them evolve into these extraordinary individual beings. And in turn, watch them, the more outgoing of them, because they're all individuals, right? Some want to hang back, but the more outgoing among them change lives in a moment. And that's what we've been doing, along with our educational piece, which is all about food and cooking, for a long time.

[00:01:34] Jasmin Singer: And, I mean, there are so many individuals there, and I know this isn't the topic of what I want to focus on today, but before we get into that, tell me just about someone who has your heart right now.

[00:01:46] Kathy Stevens: One?!

[00:01:47] Jasmin Singer: I know.

[00:01:48] Kathy Stevens: I will sAy that somebody who has my heart particularly is a pig named Mario, who was featured indirectly in a documentary about a pig farmer who had a change of heart and decided to give up pig farming when he faced what he was doing. And his name is Bob Komis, this very lyrical film that really focuses on him, not so much on the animals, is called The Last Pig. And Bob had to find space for the animals once he changed his mind, once the pigs helped him change his mind, and he could only place eight.

So he had to choose his eight favorites. He had that Sophie's Choice moment. And Mario was his kindest pig. And Mario is love on four legs. And a few months ago we noticed a limp. And very long story short, a twig had gone into his skin between his two rear claws and neither us nor the vet could detect it.

And so we kept treating and treating and pulling out tiny fragments and it didn't get better. Eventually he had to go to Cornell and have one of these toes or claws removed, but he is bopping around. We're waiting for a prosthetic that will just give him better balance, but he's bopping around as if nothing had ever happened.

And he's the most beautiful. I kissed him on his muddy nose yesterday and he's just the most beautiful spirit.

He just loves.

[00:03:30] Jasmin Singer: He sounds incredible. We interviewed Bob about that film, so for those of you listening, we will link to that episode in the show notes in case you want to see more about Mario's story. So Kathy, the reason we wanted to catch up with you is because of that recent article in the New York Times.

So tell us about what's going on at the sanctuary as it relates to that article.

[00:03:50] Kathy Stevens: Well, isn't hindsight 2020?

Word to the wise, word to anyone considering opening a sanctuary. Do not open a sanctuary in a valley. So we did, 20 years ago, we bought a piece of property, that was in pretty tough shape, in a valley and proceeded, as funding came in, to literally build, after the massive cleanup, to do one barn, one pasture, at a time.

You know, we had our challenges with wet pastures every now and then, but as rainfall has increased, and as the nature of rainfall has increased, it now comes in these violent, quick bursts more frequently than it ever did. We started to experience erosion. First a little bit of erosion and then a lot of erosion to the extent that we have lost about half of our trees, which not only provide shade for the animals and homes for birds and all kinds of critters, but also slow erosion.

So the trees, from north to south, our westernmost pastures are on bedrock and they are rapidly turning to rock as we lose trees, and there's nothing to hold the soil in place, and the rainfall intensifies. So we're losing our trees, we're losing our pasture, our pasture, and we're experiencing more barn flooding than we ever had.

And, you know, I got a call from a donor after that article came out, and she said, Kathy, is this truly an emergency, like a dire, life threatening emergency, and I said, no, but it will be if we don't get out of here. We've seen it, we looked back at our board notes, and I started raising the problem in 2017, and seven years later, it's just time to move.

And it's sad, and as you know, we're not the only sanctuary experiencing this. We're not the only sanctuary thinking, you know, how the heck? Whether people are moving to move away from tornadoes, or the threat of fire or flooding, you know, sanctuaries are moving. Some of them like Sweet Farm, whom you have had on, have moved across the country to the nice little micro climate in your neck of the woods.

[00:06:10] Jasmin Singer: And by the way, I lived near the sanctuary in Northern California when they were in Northern California.

[00:06:16] Kathy Stevens: Oh, that's interesting.

[00:06:18] Jasmin Singer: But I just have a quick question. All right. So as I mentioned to you earlier. I have a show called Environmental Connections. I got my first physical piece of mail from a listener the other day and he was a... it was two pages, single spaced, tiny font... climate denier.

[00:06:33] Kathy Stevens: I knew what you were going to say!

[00:06:35] Jasmin Singer: It made me feel like I made it. Honestly, I was like, this guy took the time to write this letter. But anyway, for anyone listening to this, who's hearing you describe these issues that you're going through and that other sanctuaries are going through, tell us how you know they're related to climate change.

[00:06:53] Kathy Stevens: Well, because I read the science.

I mean, I just read the science. I don't read the long reports that come out of the UN periodically, but I read the summaries of the reports. And, I mean, it's just a fact. It's just a fact that we have more rainfall. I was talking to our soil and water guy, a guy named Jake Wiedemeyer, who came out here every year just to help us figure out how to mitigate against flooding.

And he was the one who said, look, we have more rainfall. It's just a fact. You can track increased rainfall in this region. And, he's the one who also said to us, there's nothing more that you can do. So if we had one odd year, then it's one odd year. Yes, weather is variable, but if you stack year after year after year after year after year of strange weather, then how can it be anything but what the scientists have been saying it was for decades?

I just don't know. You know, we, we got some pushback too when the piece came out, from a long term member, who just wrote the opposite of a two page missive. He just wrote, climate change, really? I'm out of here.

[00:08:07] Jasmin Singer: Oh my gosh. Wow.

[00:08:10] Kathy Stevens: So, you know, I think that deep down, a lot of climate changers are probably utterly terrified and so hopeless and feel so powerless to do anything but label everybody else reactive or alarmist would be terrifying. Because if they didn't do that, then they'd have to be really frightened along with the rest of us.

[00:08:32] Jasmin Singer: Okay, so speaking of the rest of us, and you mentioned that there are other sanctuaries going through this, you mentioned Sweet Farm, we also recently heard about a sanctuary in Ireland that's going through a very similar situation, and the New York Times article points out other sanctuaries in the U. S., including Sweet Farm, that have already moved because of climate concerns. So do you think this is going to be a growing problem for sanctuaries, and is there some reason that sanctuaries are more vulnerable to climate change than other kinds of facilities?

[00:09:04] Kathy Stevens: Yes, I think it's a growing change. No, I don't think we're more vulnerable. So to part one of the question, you know, there have been farms whose entire cow herds have washed down the river,

[00:09:17] Jasmin Singer: Ugh.

[00:09:18] Kathy Stevens: right? There have been pigs, massive drownings of pigs in the south and horrible floods. So, I do believe this is going to be a worsening problem as we've known, we've known for a long time. I remember it was roughly 10 years ago when the UN report came out that said we've got 10 to 12 years before calamitous change begins. And I remember the graph, it went if this were a line, it went like this, it went like this and then it went like this. And we're at that intersection, I believe.

[00:09:57] Jasmin Singer: For our audio listeners- flatline, flatline, and then boom, up.

[00:10:01] Kathy Stevens: And then boom, way, way up. And so I think we're at that intersection of where we've been seeing gradual increase to where we start to be alarmed. And all the headlines are talking about this. So, I think that, absolutely, if you're on the coast and you have a sanctuary, you should be concerned.

If you're in a drought stricken area, you should be concerned. If you're in a valley, you should be concerned. The last time we looked, we identified 16 sanctuaries that had relocated. I don't remember offhand how many had relocated because of climate change, but the majority of them.

Little Bear, we're great friends with Chris Vane of Little Bear Sanctuary in Florida. They had a hurricane come through, I don't remember which one it was, and their lives were threatened. They lost a couple animals and their place was destroyed.

[00:10:58] Jasmin Singer: I read the article a few times, including, again, right before we chatted, it just occurred to me that it's fresh in my mind, some of the things that are happening in the kind of bowl that your sanctuary is in. Tell our listeners a few of the things you're dealing with, specifically.

[00:11:15] Kathy Stevens: Well, yeah, we are in a bowl. And so we have spent over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars to do all that we can, donor dollars to keep our place dry and to keep water moving, you know, we've taken out and replaced culvert pipes. Just think of drainage pipes.

Drainage pipes that were 6 inches in diameter with ones that are 24 inches in diameter. We've deepened the pond 2 times. We've pitched roads so that when rain comes it moves into the ditches rather than into the opposite side, into the pastures. We've trenched through the middle of the pastures, but it has been so wet that we have several pastures that we haven't used literally in three years, and that of course, impacts everything.

That impacts everything. When you can't use a pasture, you can't rotate to it. So, the ones that the animals are on never have a chance to rest. So the grass doesn't become as lush as you want it to be. So of course we're spending more money on hay, which is already going through the roof. So there's a ripple effect with each and every concern.

[00:12:27] Jasmin Singer: So, what's the plan? What do we do about it? I mean, you're saying it's not an emergency, but it's almost an emergency. It sounds like an emergency to me, but you know, I can be hyperbolic. What are we going to do, Kathy?

[00:12:38] Kathy Stevens: That's not really hyperbolic. I would say it's bordering on an emergency,

[00:12:44] Jasmin Singer: Okay.

[00:12:45] Kathy Stevens: Bordering on an emergency, because if we had another, for those in the Northeast, Irene or Sandy or Lee, we would be in serious trouble. When we had the last one, which I don't ever remember the order of them, when we had the last one, we wound up with some of our ducks in, and some of our goats, actually, in the office.

[00:13:07] Jasmin Singer: Wow. Wow.

[00:13:08] Kathy Stevens: Barns were being flooded quickly. So We're joining the sanctuaries that are moving. We're looking for a new place. We're joining the list of sanctuaries that are relocating or looking to move because we just, we can't be here any longer.

[00:13:22] Jasmin Singer: How many animals are we talking about moving here?

[00:13:25] Kathy Stevens: Right now, we actually only have 200 because of the nature of what's going on here, we're not taking in many new rescues, which is a tough thing to do, but it's just not the responsible thing to do. So we have 200, but over 100 of them are big animals. Most of them are goats and sheep and pigs and cows and horses.

So when we talk about 200, you know, two thirds to three quarter of them are big animals. It's not a small thing.

[00:13:57] Jasmin Singer: No. I moved four animals from Los Angeles to New York and they were all under 10 pounds and it was nearly impossible.

Yeah. Yeah. exactly. So are you, like, where are you looking?

[00:14:11] Kathy Stevens: So we love our staff. We love this community. Ideally we'd like to stay a stone's throw from here, but just have different geology and topography. So we're looking in a 30 mile radius. We found a few places, but one somebody put in an offer before we did, or put in a higher offer I should say.

Another one was just too complicated. The situation was very complicated. There was a woman with a life tenancy and very just complicated, but we found a little place!

[00:14:42] Jasmin Singer: Can you talk about it? Like, anything you can tell us? I'm very intrigued.

[00:14:47] Kathy Stevens: Here's where we are now. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place. In the town of Gardner, which is about 40 minutes closer to Manhattan, which is exciting because a number of our, our friends are from the city. And it's just outside the town of New Paltz, which is awesome.

It's, New Paltz is a college town. It's great for partnerships. It's great because they have so many vegan restaurants or vegan friendly restaurants. It's great for recruiting interns. It's great for collaborative partnerships with like minded organizations. So it couldn't be a better location. It is a Beautiful property with a breathtaking view of the mountains, the Shomgum, as they're pronounced.

They're not, they're not spelled like that, but they're pronounced Shomgum Mountains. And we're just putting one foot in front of the other. We've got seven pieces. Our 150 acres here are made up of seven parcels. We never, thank goodness, we never erased the property lines. I think I must have had some inkling that potentially we might need to move.

So we didn't erase the property lines. So we've got houses to sell. We've got the main campus, as we call it, to sell. Over the Ridge is a property of 32 acres. I don't remember if I ever took you over there.

[00:16:06] Jasmin Singer: I remember seeing it. Yeah.

[00:16:08] Kathy Stevens: It's a gorgeous property, beautiful rolling hills. We've got a stretch of 25 acres.

I'm sitting in the homestead, which is our bed and breakfast. And that's on its own two acre piece. And then right across the street, there's a 25 acre piece of woods overlooking a waterfall. So it's complicated to line up the timing to sell these places, but the animals have to have somewhere to go, a. B, there is lots of built construction that needs to happen before the place is move in ready.

And then C, the biggest complication is that the Open Space Institute, that some people may be familiar with, has what's called the development rights to this property. There are non profits that exist to conserve open land, to promote sustainable development, and they purchase the development rights from the current owner, who then has in perpetuity this easement so that when the next person comes along to purchase it, what you can do on that property is pretty limited.

So we had a meeting, you know, the deal breaker would be if we can't build additional barns. That would be the deal breaker. There are limitations on other things like signage.

We can figure, we can do workarounds for all of those things. The thing we couldn't do a workaround for is animal structures, but we're really optimistic because we had a great, great meeting with the ED of the organization that took this development rights thing over from OpenSpace, Walk Hill Valley Land Trust, and she is a pretty serious animal lover.

She has volunteered here before. She remembers meeting Babe the cow and crying because he kissed her face. So we couldn't have a better ally.

[00:18:08] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:18:09] Kathy Stevens: So we're pretty excited. We're going to hear from them next week. And then we've got a period of due diligence and a lot of work, a lot, a lot of, a lot of work, a lot of fundraising, a lot of everything to do.

[00:18:21] Jasmin Singer: To be fully transparent, there is a little bit of a gap between when we record these and when they air. So if there is new information by then, we will update our listeners at the top of the show, just so that we're clear. Because

[00:18:34] Kathy Stevens: Awesome. Okay, I'll circle back if there is. And there will be.

[00:18:38] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, well, that's what I was gonna say.

I imagine it's moving quickly. So you found this land. What does a sanctuary have to consider these days when looking for good land? Like, what, when you looked at that property, what were, what was your checklist?

[00:18:52] Kathy Stevens: Top of the list, climate resilience. It's like, in the time of increasing weather uncertainty, you've got to have really, you have to have the right kind of soil. There are good soils that encourage drainage. There are bad soils that discourage drainage. This property has the best soil around.

And it's actually interesting because it's in a community where there's a lot of clay soil, which was what we have here, just terrible for drainage. So good soil, the right slope, so that you're not having rain events pouring toward your animal structures. Shade, ample shade because it's just getting harder and animals would rather stand under a tree than be stuck in a barn all day.

So those are some of the biggest pieces. We look for things like, are there any existing retention ponds? So that when there is flooding, is there somewhere for the, and there is on this place. So, honestly, as we go and we implement, we needed the raw canvas and this is pretty strong in terms of a raw canvas that will allow us to implement permaculture principles and to do it in a more forward thinking way.

Now that we know what we know and what we know is only going to get increasingly frightening with every passing year. More frightening and more challenging to address, to look for a climate resilient place and to build for climate resilience is what we'll be doing. Yeah.

[00:20:27] Jasmin Singer: And to that last point, to be honest, Kathy, one of the reasons I moved back to New York State was because of climate change and how vulnerable LA felt, which is where I was living before. So is New York State a relatively safe place, and does this situation prove that no one is actually safe?

[00:20:45] Kathy Stevens: Well, so, you know, it's interesting because whatever you look at, in general, the Northeast is considered, when you talk about regions of the country, as I'm sure you know, the Northeast is one of the safest regions, the Northeast, the Great Lakes region. So in general, I think you made a great choice. And what I've also learned about your region, your region, is that that's a really nice, very climate friendly little microclimate.

In general, we haven't had the level of disaster that we've seen all around the country. It's just for us that we, we picked a valley. We picked a valley. We picked a place with clay soil and are paying the price. But no, you made a good choice.

[00:21:29] Jasmin Singer: Okay, well, good. I mean, I'm not just asking for myself. You mentioned your friends in Florida at a sanctuary, and I'm immediately worried about them. Just, like, all of Florida, I'm worried about. For so many reasons, by the way,

[00:21:41] Kathy Stevens: I don't know if you remember, you're younger than I am, but An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's movie. I remember watching that and he put up at one point a diagram, a graphic, of the water coming in, year after year after year, and I so clearly remember Florida disappearing.

[00:22:01] Jasmin Singer: My gosh, I remember that too. I've been vegan for 20 years this year. I'm 44. I feel like everything has changed like since I went vegan. I honestly, like we always talk about the food. Oh my god, how much the food has exploded. But on the climate side, I remember being really close with one person in particular who was like, panicked about climate change.

And then I met Marianne and she was like also panicked about climate change and we were like, well, we have to get out of lower Manhattan. And so we got out of lower Manhattan and everyone kind of thought we were crazy. And now you're seeing things like this happen. Do you think people are starting to really understand it or do you think it's still a foreign concept?

[00:22:45] Kathy Stevens: I think it is hard to generalize. I think that Americans in particular, this is going to sound harsh, can be pretty stupid. And it has nothing to do with IQ. It has nothing to do with IQ. It has to do with the bullshit that we're fed by the media. The fact that we all live on our phones. The fact that our schools are a joke. We're not teaching critical thinking. And so I don't, I would hesitate to generalize about humanity, but it shocks the hell out of me, and you, and I would venture to say all your listeners. That we just act as if this is a radical notion. The fact that we are killing the earth and this poor, beautiful planet is fighting back and is gonna spit us out like we're, you know, a bad taste.

Even my arch conservative father once said, We're a virus.

[00:23:49] Jasmin Singer: Oh my

[00:23:50] Kathy Stevens: So I don't know how to answer, I don't know how to answer the, the questions about humanity in general, but I just think that each of us, you, you said something once on a podcast and you talked about hope as a strategy. And that stays with me and I often quote you actually about that and I think that it is all we can do. In my view, it doesn't serve me, I am not at my best when I'm thinking about people like that. I am at my best when I'm speaking from a place of love and clarity and letting whoever receives it, receive it. And sometimes it is somebody like that. Sometimes it is, and that is amazing, but usually Jasmin, usually it's the animals who can get to the people like that.

Not anything I can say or do.

[00:24:45] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:24:45] Kathy Stevens: I can do is take them in the field with a cow and suddenly they're being bathed with kisses and the synapses start to fire and then they make the connections.

[00:24:53] Jasmin Singer: No, I agree with that for sure. I think your story about Mario, for example, might be one of the main things people remember about this particular chat, because it is, it's the animals who speak the loudest, I think. And by the way, most of my good ideas originated with Mariann, so anytime, anytime anyone's quoting me, they're probably inadvertently quoting Mariann.

Just saying, she's the one that plants the seeds in my brain. So, let's go back to the New York Times piece. If you were to have written that piece yourself, what would you have emphasized? Would it have been exactly how it came out, or would there have been a different angle?

[00:25:30] Kathy Stevens: Oh, that's interesting. You know, it is the New York Times. That's a great question. It is the New York Times. And the thing that was weird is that the photographer, she was following us around the whole time and she put me in place a and I would smile, and she'd say, don't smile. She wouldn't, she wouldn't let me smile.

And so I felt like the whole article was the, the written version of Don't Smile. I thought she did an exceptional job, but it was just very, very, very factual. I remember reading it very nervous, because you never know, but no, I wouldn't change anything in particular.

I thought it was for the New York Times. I thought it was factual. I thought it was thorough. I liked the fact that she brought in the science a little bit, but not too much for people to turn away.

I think there could have been a few more stories about the impact on the animals, but it's the New York Times.

I thought she did an amazing job.

[00:26:35] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, and the photos were beautiful. I mean, they, they were stunning. And I thought the article as a whole was fantastic. It's interesting to hear you say that though, because you do have, despite yourself, you do have a joie de vivre, you do have a...

[00:26:51] Kathy Stevens: I do. Of course I do!

[00:26:53] Jasmin Singer: Well, I mean, you've seen a lot of shit and you are still a powerful presence and you're not like a doomster, you know, or a doomer, I guess they call it. You know, you're not. I mean, do you, I don't want to, you don't want to generalize humanity. I do, but okay. The, I don't want to generalize, like, generations. I talk about generations way too often. I think I'm Gen X by, like, by, like, a few years. I just made it into Gen X, but, like, Mariann and I talk about it because she's a boomer and also, she doesn't want to talk about it. I make her talk about it.

[00:27:29] Kathy Stevens: Yeah. I just made it into boomers. I'm a boomer. Bye.

[00:27:32] Jasmin Singer: Oh, really? You were almost a Gen X and I was almost not.

Okay, I, I kind of figured you were a Gen X too, but, so Mariann being a boomer, I don't know, I do see a big difference. I work with people of varying ages now, and I just sort of wonder if, like, younger people are hardwired to be sunnier people because they're gonna be here longer, but okay I'm getting back into doom bad stuff. So you don't have to reply to that if you don't want to.

[00:28:03] Kathy Stevens: I mean, it's interesting. If you find that younger people are sunnier, that is fascinating to me, because I don't pay attention to generational stuff, even though my partner's son, Devin, in his 20s is always sending me stuff to read about generational stuff. If I were in my 20s, Jasmin, and I wanted kids, I don't know that I would have them.

That's a heavy thing. I don't know. Like my oldest niece just had a baby. And she's not one of those people. She and her husband are very aware. And they had a baby. What kind of air is that baby going to be breathing in 20 years? Will that baby see a tree? And you know, I mean, we are adaptive.

Uh, but I don't, as connected to the natural world as I am, I wouldn't want to live in a world without trees.

[00:29:02] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I just did an episode of Environmental Connections about whether or not people should be having kids right now. And it's not a strongly angled show. We have people on the panel from all different perspectives, including me, someone who never had them.

But who wanted them, by the way. And so like whenever I meet someone over 40 who didn't have one, they're like, Oh my God, right? Like, thank God we didn't have one. I'm like, no, actually I really felt the urge. I really felt that kind of throbbing uterus that happens to you around 40. I really wanted kids, but it was a choice I made not to have them.

And it's a sacrifice that I made that I am sad about, but I'm also satisfied with. And those two things coexist. But there were also a lot of people who wanted to have them and knew what they were getting into. So we will link to that in the show notes as well for anyone who's interested in this topic.

So I do have a selfish question for you, Kathy. You're, you're in your B& B right now, I think. You said you're in your B& B right now, right?

[00:30:01] Kathy Stevens: Yeah.

[00:30:02] Jasmin Singer: So are you gonna continue having a B& B? Asking for a friend?

[00:30:07] Kathy Stevens: So one of the things that we have to figure out with this new property, cause I'm assuming it's gonna happen. I'm just assuming that we're moving to Gardner, is what the restrictions are for overnight space.

The language in the easement is a little ambiguous, and so if we can't have a B& B, we will have some sort of housing. They draw a distinction between permanent and impermanent structures. And so now we're saying, okay, if we can't do A, can we do glamping? Can we do, you know, what can we do?

[00:30:46] Jasmin Singer: Do a cute little, a cute little Airstream from the 1950s with like a checkered kitchen.

[00:30:51] Kathy Stevens: Or maybe some tiny houses. Like we'll see, we'll just have to see. I don't know what, how tiny houses are defined, but we're figuring that part out. We really want to offer overnight housing, overnight accommodation. A hundred percent. Just don't know what it's going to look like.

[00:31:06] Jasmin Singer: So how do you feel? I mean, just as we close up this interview, though, I do want you to stay on and chat with our flock for a few minutes too. How are you feeling about all this? I mean, this is 20 some odd years of your life. Are you like, bring it? Or are you sad? Like, tell me a little bit about where your heart is right now.

[00:31:24] Kathy Stevens: I am at bring it, which is interesting because a year or so ago I was talking to the board about moving on and launching a search for my successor and then it became apparent that this was just not the right time. You can't bring in on a successor to a 20 some year founder is kind of a big thing and searching for and setting up a new property is kind of a big thing.

So it just did a lot of reflecting and we brought in a terrific new board and I realize, I think, think a lot about privilege and there is nothing I have to complain about. I'm healthy. I have a wonderful community of friends. This is an amazing team. I am simultaneously impatient with, but excited by the change I see in the vegan space.

I've learned a lot of lessons, some of them the hard way, about what not to do in terms of running a sanctuary. And so, no, I am on fire and determined to see this through and to set up this place to be as resilient as possible, to be as impactful as possible. We have an amazing brand new partnership with the Mayor's Office of Food Policy in the city, and we're in lots of classrooms bringing the animals to the kids.

So no, I'm optimistic, determined, energized.

[00:33:00] Jasmin Singer: Good. I'm so happy to hear you say that. I'm not surprised to hear you say that. But I want to know, lastly, how our listeners can support your efforts.

[00:33:10] Kathy Stevens: Oh my goodness. I am so grateful to you for asking that. We have going on right now in quarter two, what's called a 401 hay campaign, and it is designed to supplement our income, which is, this is a slow quarter for us historically, and help us take care of escalating medical costs cause our, the average age of our animals is like 914, and escalating hay costs and escalating vet bills.

And so they can go right online and just find the 401 Hay Campaign and contribute to that. And also follow us on social media because we'll be doing particular announcements, updating people about the move once we're a little farther along, reminding people about 401 Hay. So any of our social media and the website.

Log on and donate and come visit, come visit. We're open for tours here on Saturdays and hope to be open for a big old welcome event sometime this year.

[00:34:15] Jasmin Singer: Oh my gosh. That's so great. Also,

401 It Hay?

Like, who came up with401 Hayy? Because that person deserves a cupcake. Was it you?

[00:34:25] Kathy Stevens: Yeah.

[00:34:27] Jasmin Singer: Okay, you need a cupcake! That was, I mean, it's like adorable, but it's also so powerful. And like, it says so much. I love it so much. Oh my gosh. All right..

[00:34:38] Kathy Stevens: You know, can I just tell you? I might be taking the credit from somebody else. My memory is that it was me. We launched a 401 hay campaign a long time ago, like over 10 years ago.

[00:34:49] Jasmin Singer: Okay.

[00:34:49] Kathy Stevens: That staff that was with us back then, is not here now. So there's a possibility that it was somebody else.

[00:34:55] Jasmin Singer: Well, you know, the best ideas are stolen.

[00:34:59] Kathy Stevens: Lemme amend and say, I don't remember. I think it was my idea, but who cares? I

[00:35:04] Jasmin Singer: Cupcakes for everyone. Vegan Cupcakes for everyone!

Yeah. It was probably Mariann's idea. I mean, let's be real. I'm just kidding. All right, amazing. Kathy, so much for joining me today on Our Hen House. Stay on the line. I want to chat with you a little further, but I adore you and I'm so excited about this next phase.

[00:35:25] Kathy Stevens: LIkewise, Jasmin Singer. Thanks everybody. Hope to see you up here soon.