Page 110 - EarthHeroes

A vegan farm animal sanctuary is something you might not expect to find in Texas, home to vast cattle ranches, rodeos, barbecues and livestock shows. Raising animals – especially cattle – for food is a big way of life in this part of America. And Renee and her husband are two of the unlikeliest vegans you could ever meet. Ten years earlier, Renee had been a city girl who enjoyed burgers, shopping malls and yoga classes. She had been a singer in a band
called Renee King & Wildcard and owned an impressive collection of leather cowboy
boots that she liked to wear onstage. Tommy was from a family that had
owned and run cattle ranches for four generations. After working for over
30 years in the chemical industry, Tommy had bought the 100-acre ranch to farm cattle in his retirement
and when they got married, Renee agreed to move there with him.
At first, Renee had little interest in
the ranch and Tommy’s farming work.
She kept up her yoga practice, ignoring the cows that grazed peacefully in the
pasture. Then Tommy asked her to bottle-feed two motherless calves, hoping to get her interested in ranching. This didn’t work out quite as he’d planned.
One of the calves was calm and sedate. But the other was lively and fun. She was black with a white heart shape on her head, and Renee named her Rowdy Girl. Renee had always been an animal lover as a child – with dogs, cats and even a pet ferret. The more time Renee spent with the calves, the more she loved them. Soon she was spending lots of time with all the cows. She practised her yoga out in the pasture, where she talked to the cows, danced around them and even sang to them while strumming her guitar! She often liked to sit quietly beneath a tree and wait for the cows to come to her. Some would lie down next to her, resting their heads in her lap. Renee gave each of the cows names. Watching them, she discovered that they had different personalities and saw the strong bonds between the mothers and their calves. Then she learned about the red trailer.
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