Sweet Bear Rescue Farm

06/18/2026

This explains:

Why I drank every day and was addicted to prescription meds. I truly did not realize I was addicted because I was only taking them at night and under my doctors supervision. It’s been just over a year since I started the cold turkey withdrawal from ambien and clonopin, leading into the hardest 6 months of my life. A friend in the medical profession told me coming off these drugs is nearly impossible to do on your own but I did it, and I did it without drinking.

Why I decided to spend 6 of my weeks in Ecuador fostering a mama cat and her kittens.

Why I thrive being single and spending a lot of time with myself post meds (ahem, hard core pharmaceutical drugs). Priorities go this “ride” I’ve been on I was desperate for external validation and I couldn’t stand to be alone, and I was used to being disliked by the people I was closest to so on some undercurrent level it felt familiar.

Why my temper was out of control, I was on the edge of disaster pretty much always. My baseline trauma characteristic is hypervigilant and the best way to explain that is a need to understand and control as much as possible, and when things go sideways, big or small, it feels like the plane is going down. Just going through life either drinking or freaking the f out. (I now love my temper, I fully reject white Roman politeness and I refuse to accept the culture of shaming “angry”, “difficult”, “crazy”, etc as terms we use to s**t on other women. Stop. Just seriously stop. If a woman is angry with you I bet you deserve do just suck it up without dragging her.

Why I was so sick for just over two years and it was so hard to diagnose. Between the stress levels of living through a smear campaign after getting out of a brutal relationship with endless cheating and gaslighting to the addiction and then all of the tragedy.

Continued in comments

06/16/2026

Cuencana Vegana Tours is now on Facebook! Give us a follow and vamos a Peru!

Fully plant-based, curated tours through Ecuador & the Sacred Valley. Discover ancient history, sacred Inca ruins, and vibrant artisan culture alongside premium, local vegan dining. Your conscious Andean adventure awaits. 🌿✈️

06/16/2026

Leslie came to us in 2017. She was one of our very first rescues and this was a collaboration with Farm Sanctuary in New York. We agreed to take seventeen birds rescued from an annual event called the Kaporos. The Kaporos is a horrible, violent, devastating event that happens every year in September. You can learn more about it here, but in its most simple definition, it's a ritual in which these birds are killed en masse in the name of religion. And every year there are incredibly brave activists that go to this event and rescue as many birds as they can. This is a huge undertaking as they need rescuers, cages, hotel rooms, transportation, and ultimately sanctuaries. I am in awe of the hard work that goes into giving these babies a new life, and I was thrilled when I was invited to give a permanent home to so many.

When our girls first came to us, they were scared but healthy, and for that I am so grateful. These birds are about the sweetest creatures on God's earth and this is by design. They are called Cornish Cross Chickens, and they are bred to get as big as possible as quickly as possible so they can be consumed by people just like you and me. In addition to being genetically modified to grow exceptionally fast and way too big for their own good, they are also bred to be sweet and docile. What ends up happening is a lot of kids with very big bodies and very small legs just hoping someone will love them and show them kindness. So when I say it has been an honor, we mean that.

These birds are killed at six weeks to become wings and legs on a plate. Even in the very best conditions, these chickens typically have a lifespan of under one year. Our last little love was Leslie. All of our girls were named after Parks and Rec characters, and it's so fitting that our last little love would be Leslie. We lost her a few days ago, the last of our seventeen that showed up nearly a decade ago and changed our lives forever.

Nathan has been their primary caregiver for the past few months and he wanted to write a few words about her:

"My sweet girl had so many nicknames, but mostly I called her Lil Cheese. She was a very sassy, very loveable girl, following me around all the time hoping I had food! She had so much energy and life, running around the yard with her chicken and pig friends. She could be so loving, rubbing against my leg like a cat when she wanted my attention. Even on her very last day she was so sweet and she had such a long life. I'm just grateful I got to be a part of it."

Have a beautiful day everyone.

Lisa

06/06/2026

The fam had a watermelon party 🍉 🎉 without me and I’m not mad about it.

Photos by Nathan 😊

06/03/2026

We’ve got some big life news coming out in our newsletter later today. Link to join us in our Instagram bio and at Kindnessempire.com ✌️

05/28/2026

1) I dare you to find a happier baby
2) chaos
3) exhaustion

05/27/2026

This is exactly why I always disclose how anything I ever do for myself is paid for. Always. Because when I spent a month in Haiti, the third poorest country in the world, to build a school made of trash, I was called out for being selfish. I was told I take other people’s money and go on glamorous vacations. I read this while I was standing in garbage. And now once again, I find myself in a developing country, where I paid to get here on my own, and I am also the number one contributor to mine nonprofit, but I constantly have to disclose even the tiniest thing I do for myself.

I have no home. I spent a year living in a camper. For the first four months I was in a camper that was in no way safe enough or warm enough for me or my animals. But I did it because I refused to leave my home while any of those animals were still there.

Yes, I am in Ecuador, but I am still paying about 70% of the expenses of my nonprofit. I still do not have a home. I have no idea if I will ever get another home. I am also still running the operation completely on my own. That means all of the business administration, all of the fundraising, etc.

We have no income right now other than our monthly donors. We cannot rent out our pool. We cannot have campers. We cannot do tours. That made up for about 15-20k of income for us and it’s gone.

Please, stop doing this to women who have dedicated themselves to a life of service. The only reason I can even afford to be here in Ecuador, is because I was a consultant in my previous life. I quit my career, my very lucrative career, to rescue animals full-time. I have a sliver of a retirement because of that, but the pressure and the anxiety and the stress was so insurmountable that I decided I would tap into that money, the money for my future, to just give myself something. Anything. To make this life more manageable.

The incredible people running sweep bear rescue farm right now are doing an excellent job. I am so grateful and proud of them.

Thanks for listening. Kitten pics coming soon to balance out the bad with good,