Note: I’m grateful to Evie Vanderlip, who inspired me to write this story by telling me about her support of Ballydìdean Farm Sanctuary. As a non-meat eater, Evie was asked if Ballydìdean influenced her to become a vegetarian. No. She texted me a photo she keeps on her fridge of a donkey named Pasado who lived on a Bellevue farm in the 1970s near where Evie grew up. A pair of boys once tortured Pasado and strangled him to death. They were convicted of the crime. After this tragedy an organization—Pasado’s Safe Haven animal shelter and rescue was formed. “I have had Pasado on my fridge, everywhere I’ve lived, for as long as I can remember.” texted Evie. “We’ve been vegetarian for many years.”
An afternoon visit on a sunny July summer afternoon found me walking through pastures visiting with mini pigs and sheep, scratching goat’s heads through a wire fence, watching hens and roosters hunt and peck, and meeting a cow named Dahlia who stood behind me as I chatted with her humans.
All of these animals have found sanctuary at the Ballydìdean Farm Sanctuary in Clinton. The name is pronounced as ba-lee-DEE-din. Bally is Irish for farm and dìdean is Irish for refuge. Sarah Santosa is of Irish descent. She and her husband Ansel—who was not named for the famous nature photographer Ansel Adams—have owned the acreage since 2018. When they bought this piece of property along French Road, Sarah said it reminded her of Ireland.
“My mom Mab is 100% Irish and has dual citizenship,” said Sarah. “My family went to Ireland every couple of years. It was here on Whidbey where I felt most at home. Where my soul was supposed to be. Ansel and I got married in Ireland. It was August 2018 when we purchased this house and picked out the name. The estates in Ireland have beautiful names.”
Many of the 160 or more resident farm animals who reside on the 15-plus acre property have Irish names as well, and all of them are greeted by name when walking on this tour with Ansel. They are valued not for the meat, eggs, milk or breeding stock they produce, but for who they are as beings worthy of living. Ansel and Sarah, their six-soon-to-be-seven year old daughter Gwendolyn, and Sarah’s parents—who spend part of their time living on the farm—do not eat meat. Part of the farm’s raison d’être or reason for being is creating empathy for animals by meeting them face to face. Having a farm animal sanctuary was a dream of Ansel and Sarah’s when they were teens attending high school in Minneapolis MN suburbs.
“Ballydìdean rescues, rehabilitates, and rehomes farmed animals who are unwanted, neglected or abused. Through tours and community education, we give people the chance to make friends with animals they typically only meet on their dinner plate, giving them an opportunity to rethink their relationship with farmed animals,” notes the website’s mission page.
Admittedly it is jarring to view pork chops on the dinner plate after meeting Friday, a mini-pig who was found wandering on Bayview Road. When she was brought to the Ballydìdean Farm, she was pregnant. Later Friday delivered 10 piglets. With only eight teats, her remaining babies were bottle-fed at the farm.
I admired her sitting in a mud puddle looking as happy as a pig in mud could look.
Ansel said, “Mud is good for their skin. It helps with parasites. It helps with sunblock. It helps keep them cool. And it’s just fun. These are all mini pigs,” he said gesturing to more than a dozen short dark pigs with mud-covered bristle-haired backs. “The average adult weight for a mini pig is 150 to 250 pounds. We have some big mini pigs, like Arnold, who is probably 300 to 350 pounds, and he was a lot heavier when he got here. You’ve seen the big pink farm pigs at the fair, you know what they’re like, easily three times his size?”
As an alternative to traditional farm programs such as 4-H, the couple subscribe to a curriculum with a different focus with regard to animals.
The couple work with LEAP—Leaders for Ethics, Animals and the Planet, a program founded in Northern California. LEAP’s website notes it is “the first-of-its-kind humane education program to reach young people as a compassionate alternative to traditional agricultural and leadership programs. Providing in-depth monthly curriculum, high-impact leadership training, hands-on workshops and service opportunities at sanctuaries across the country, LEAP is preparing the next generation of leaders to transform our food systems, advocate for animal welfare and human rights, tackle the challenges of food deserts and diet-related diseases, and lead the way in climate solutions, sustainability, and wildlife conservation.”
LEAP comes once a month,” said Sarah. “We do lessons on animal care education and some farm work. I’m excited to have them here because we get a lot done.”
“LEAP is a compassionate alternative to 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America)—where animals they raise are sold for someone to kill,” added Ansel. “Kids in that age group have access to LEAP scholarships, animal husbandry, and environmentalism.”
The Santosa family will host a petting zoo for the fourth year in a row at the Whidbey Island Fair, held this year from July 24-27. “That’s wonderful outreach for us,” said Sarah. “We feel good about the educational piece of it—that the petting zoo is safe.” Sarah may serve as announcer for this year’s fair parade, as she has done in past years.
Sarah and Ansel met in high school in the suburbs of Minneapolis Minnesota, a state whose ethos includes hunters and fishers.
“There were no vegetarian options at school lunch,” recalled Sarah who is now in her thirties as is Ansel. “At South Whidbey, our daughter has plant-based options every day, although sometimes it’s just a sun-butter sandwich. When I figured out I was eating something I loved, I stopped eating meat. My parents were supportive and are still to this day. I was mercilessly bullied for it in high school.”
Ansel said he became vegetarian while attending college. Ansel and Sarah attended UW in Seattle after graduating from high school.
A link on their website tells their origin story. Noted here is an excerpt written by Ansel of their life after moving to Seattle: “…her for theater production and architecture, me for human computer interaction in informatics. We moved in together Junior year and adopted a rescue kitten from The NOAH Center, and later a second cat from a friend.
“After graduation, we stayed in Seattle. Me for the thriving startup tech scene and her for the thriving real-estate market. I started my formal programming career (ExtraHop) and she bought a house in Ballard, and started managing a boutique bridal business in Greenlake (Calla Bridal). And we finally got married!”
After the couple sold their Ballard home and the bridal business, which Sarah had bought, they moved with their baby daughter Gwendolyn to their 15-plus acres on French Road.
Ballydìdean Farm hosts five tours a week—receiving about a thousand visitors a year—works with schools, and hosts education classes—such as the farm camp with Readiness to Learn at the South Whidbey Community Center. Tour proceeds, donations and an annual fundraiser dinner pay for about 60 to 70 percent of the farm’s expenses.
Ansel said he still does tech work to support the family and about 30- to 40 percent of the farm’s budget. They get some grants for the education programs they run, but most support is from the community.
“Most of our donors are individuals who make small donations,” said Ansel. “We love those people and have them over for dinner once a year. Our bread and butter is from the $20 to $50 donations people make.”
There’s a lot of work to maintain the farm and its animal residents.
Monthly volunteer work parties are held on third Sundays from 10 AM to 1 PM for all ages and skill levels. A few volunteers come in to help during the week. Much of the farm work involves processing the 2,000 pounds a week of no longer salable fruits and veggies donated by the Goose Grocer and Clinton Foodmart for the sanctuary’s animals.
A handful of teen paid staff, work during the summer and sometimes during the school year. During this visit I met Maliya, a paid volunteer from South Whidbey High School. At school she’s involved in dancing and cheerleading, and interested in pursuing nursing and early childhood education degrees. Asked about why she likes working at the farm, she said, “…getting to know the animals and their back stories. This is a safe place for them.”
Yodelai, an Angora goat, is an example of an old girl who was at first treated well, then neglected later on. Ansel noted “…so Yodelai is ancient. She’s at least 15. Goats usually live 10 to 12 years, so she is like 110 in goat years.”
The couple have noticed an improvement to their land since their first adoptee—Dahlia the cow—whose milking days were over—arrived at the age of 12. The ungulates or hooved animals aerate the soil and nourish it with their droppings. Dahlia’s one of the farm’s superstars—she’s 18 and is a free ranger, walking around munching greens—she knows which ones are good for her and avoids the ones that are bad—and observes the conversation of humans with curiosity .
With support from the Whidbey Island Conservation District on best practices for managing manure runoff and maintaining their farm to earn a tax break, the couple were surprised to learn that pigs make for excellent clearers of non-native brush.
“For me the biggest positive impact has been the pigs,” said Sarah. “I know…it’s a twist. People talk of goats eating down invasive thistles. Listen listen. Sure they will eat leaves. They will prevent the spreading. But they don’t take out rhizomes, canes, and roots. Pigs absolutely do. I didn’t anticipate it. I appreciate them. Pigs are interested in roots, shoots, and rhizomes. Our pigs have no Canada thistle or Himalayan blackberry in their yard. That’s like four acres they’ve cleared.”
The animals travel the island acting as ambassadors of good will. Sarah recalled bringing the farm’s hen Stella to a retirement home in Oak Harbor.
“A poignant moment…I was holding Stella our chicken. A woman came up and started crying and said, ‘My daddy made me butcher chickens with him.’ She was reliving that trauma. Her memory was crystal clear and vivid. She had to go and collect herself. She kissed the chicken. She hugged the chicken. Said, ‘I’ll never hurt you.’ She came back and did it again—she did not remember. Maybe 75 years ago she witnessed the trauma—the hottest to touch memory.”
To learn more about this remarkable place for animals that is healing for humans, visit the Ballydìdean Farm webpage.