A Happy Ending

     In my last post, I wrote about how death reminds us of how precious life is. Just so you know, life wins an awful lot. Here are some photos to prove it.

     This baby calf was brought in by the fire to warm up because it had developed a case of the scours (calf diarrhea) and become chilled.  It was born a twin, but the mama abandoned it out in the field, letting only one calf nurse.  It was brought in and bottle fed, but sometimes that can lead to tummy upsets.  The calf was weak and didn't have much of a sucking reflex.

 After getting warm, the calf was ready to stand up.  It still couldn't suck very well, but we were able to get a little bit of milk in it.  Then we took it out to an insulated shed, and we carried out an electric heater so the temperature would be warmer.  The weather was supposed to be frigid, so the calf wasn't ready to be in an unheated place, yet.  For the next two days, we fed it, three times a day--a bottle of milk in the morning, a bottle of electrolytes in the afternoon, and then another bottle of milk in the evening.  The electrolytes were to replace fluids lost to the scouring. A healthy calf will drink two quarts of milk at a time.  At first this calf was drinking less than a pint at a shot, so the feedings were more often than that. For the first feeding,  I stood, bent over for more than an hour, trying to get it to take some nourishment.   Finally, by the third day, with the help of a shot of antibiotics and some pepto bismol for an upset stomach, the calf started sucking hard on the bottle.

     Eventually the calf was hungry and bawling every time I went out to the shed.  So hungry that he would suck on anything, including the hem of my shirt.  But, you can see in the moisture on the floor, that he was still scouring, so we bought some anti scour medicine and switched it out with the Pepto.  That did the trick.

     Look at him now.  He's healthy and hungry all the time.  Tomorrow, we'll move him to a less protected shed so he can acclimate to cold weather.  We'll still have to feed him twice a day, but I plan on teaching him to use a bucket soon.  If I don't, he will butt at me, much like he does his mom, as he eats.  While that 's cute in a small calf, it's painful in a larger one, and in a steer, it's dangerous.  I can't have him thinking of me as his mom.  So, first he'll learn to drink from a bucket and then I'll introduce grain and water to him.  Before you know it, he'll be out in the field running around with his buddies.  Don't you just love happy endings?

Chiarascuro

     Chickens have brains the size of a pea, so I shouldn't have been surprised when one of my hens went to visit my dog.  He found her delicious.  I found her back leg and some feathers.  

     You cannot ignore death if you live on a farm.  It surprises you at lambing time, when you reach inside a straining ewe to help bring a lamb into the world and bring instead a leg; the rest of the lamb still curled in utero having died yesterday. It breathes over your shoulder as you hold the halter so the vet can administer a lethal dose to a dying horse. It greets you with the news that your dog played too hard with the kitten and watches you nurse orphaned calves who die of pneumonia in spite of your tender care. 

     I have looked cattle in the face knowing that they would be a meal one day and worked up a deer who played in my meadow yesterday.  Death feeds my family.

     There’s a graveyard out in the pasture in front of my house.  One stone is inscribed to Lillie E., a beloved daughter who died in 1884 of diphtheria.  Gravestones all over the county tell the story of pioneer children who died young, sometimes whole families of them.  Of pioneers who faced more than the death of livestock or the uncomfortable knowledge that the chicken in the pot recently crowed up the sun.

    I grew up in the city where death was an abstract concept.  It visited rarely, in tragedies like the heroic death of a teenage friend as he tried to save his brother from a fire, or in hospitals where grandparents walked in and were carried out.   I did not know that death was just as much a part of life as joy and dancing and laughter.  Here on the family farm, I have learned what the pioneers knew.  We are here for a short time, and the living is sweeter because of the dying.

Angels in the Pumpkin Patch

     Halloween is tonight and I am happily anticipating at least two or three trick-or-treaters.  My lane is a quarter mile long and not many parents are willing to waste the time riding down it, if they can go to houses closer to the road and get more treats in less time.  How do I know that's how lots of parents feel?  It's because I was one of those tired parents not too long ago.  I had a love hate relationship with Halloween.
     Things I loved:  I loved how festive my little town looked with pumpkin faces glowing off of every front porch.  Pumpkins were pretty much all we had to decorate with back then.  I loved Ettie Mae's homemade popcorn balls.  We always made sure to get an extra one for Joe.  I loved walking up and down the streets with my kids and chatting with all of the other parents who were out scrunching through leaves under the Halloween moon.  I loved the creativity of costumes,and handing out candy and oohing and aahing about how clever  the kids had been.  I loved dinner with my neighbors before trick or treating and getting our rambunctious foursome of children ready for the night. I loved seeing the smiles on the faces of elderly people who were thrilled to welcome little ones to their doors.
    Things I dreaded:  I had a hard time getting costumes that I felt comfortable with and that the two boys in my household would wear.  Felt was my friend.  Green felt and hot glue for Robin Hood costumes, brown felt for leather-looking vests with cowboy hats, black felt for bat wings.

  But, I was working and finding the time to make these masterpieces was exhausting.  I also dreaded the houses for trick or treating that we had to drive to.  I would not have driven down my quarter mile long driveway. Finally, I dreaded how divided I felt about the whole thing.
    In my evangelistic community, Halloween divides a lot of us.  Some people make their houses dark and hide behind the curtains so they can avoid the appearance of embracing Halloween.  Some people make their houses scary and enjoy the night, but offend some of their neighbors in the process.  I am in the middle.  I love the camaraderie of a community out under the stars with their children.  I love the idea of a night where we can be a little scared and then go home to our safe, warm homes.  Juxtapositions often make things more meaningful.  But I don't want to celebrate evil, and sometimes I worry that Halloween does a little bit of that...gives evil permission to show its face and look fun.
   So, this year, I made angel cookies to hand out.  I hope my kind neighbors will bring their little ones to my door.  I will give them an angel cookie made from my grandmother's amazing sugar cookie recipe. Angels are messengers of hope and I want the recipients of my cookies to get a sense of that.  I want them to know that even when the world looks a little bit frightening, God's angels protect his people, watch over us and guard us.  Isn't that a great message for the scariest night of the year?
     How do you feel about it Halloween?  I would love some feedback.