The morning of my first official day back at the farm I decided that I was going to start my rounds again. I longed for the familiarity of the harvest’s smell, wind whipping at my wings and hearing the quiet chatter of the animals hard at work. Also, I was curious as to how the animals had adapted to their new way of life. Around and around I went, all across the teeming acres of the farm, but every animal I saw had the same sullen look on their face. They tended to crops, chopped wood, and moved stones into place on the windmill. All they did was work and work, many of them looked tired and hungry and their movements were halfhearted. Others, such as Boxer pushed through the weakness and picked up slack from the others. He had always been such an innocent and noble horse. But altogether, the animals looked absolutely lifeless. This surprised me for I had thought that the animals were flourishing under their new management, and if not extremely successful then at least content with their lives. The one thing that really stood out to me as I watched them was not that they were exhausted or being worked too hard; no, I realized that all the animals left here had lost hope. Before the rebellion, and even after, they had clung to it knowing that as long as they believed that things would get better, they would. But now even that had been snatched away from them, and I couldn’t help but notice that the only animals thriving here were the pigs.