Calves shipped today! It is satisfying and bittersweet, sorting and weaning and shipping, seeing a year come to a close, sending off two potloads of animals that have been under our care their entire lives.
I am so thankful for family and community, for good calf prices, for safety working, for beautiful weather and fellowship over a meal afterwards.
I hate watching animals die, or suffer. They don’t have the capacity to understand what’s happening to them, so fear sets in when they are in pain. Sometimes you can help. Sometimes the only merciful thing to do is to end their pain in a very final sort of way, which is a miserable call to have to make.
I found one of the kittens this morning almost unresponsive, limp as a rag, mouth kind of hanging open, with the death look in his little eyes. He is one of the bigger kittens, and yesterday was healthy and vibrant. I ran up to the house with him, got him warm, tried to give a little molasses water, and was afraid I was watching him die.
A little frantic racking of my brain and consulting Google, and he responded almost instantaneously to Caro syrup in his cheek, and quickly was ready for calf milk replacer. A few hours later and you’d never know anything was wrong! The kittens will officially be getting supplemental milk until they take to kibble.
This is one of many times I’ve been thankful for the medical training I have. God’s creation is beautifully organized, and His warm blooded, four-footed critters operate about the same as His two-legged critters.
I hate watching animals die. So I’m thankful I didn’t have to.
This really is a marvelous time of the year.
Today was one of those rare days where I was able to cook and bake to my heart’s content, write for the Hill City Prevailer, and work cows with my husband and father-in-law. The best of all the things! This photo just tickled me—Dave and Brad and Josie, discussing the rest of the cow work for the day.
Sarge was around to give good hugs, which is always appreciated.
The kittens have gotten cuter and cuter. Yellow Cat has entirely given up her motherly duties. The kittens aren’t suffering, however. Grey Cat is a wonderful little mother. I could listen to tiny kitten purrs all day long.
I baked a traditional kneaded sourdough boule and a loaf of French bread today, something I don’t often do, since I prefer the low-maintenance batter bread recipe I have. But it was so pleasant to knead the dough and proof it and score it, and (imperfect as the boule was, since I’m still learning the technique) it was a joy to take it to our Gideons supper this evening, with a jar of homemade plum butter. I was delighted to see the loaf disappear, as folks went back for seconds and thirds of the bread, exclaiming over how delicious it was!
It was a poignant reminder that if I am failing to be thankful and joyful, it truly is a matter of the heart, a matter of taking for granted the good things I have been given, the good things I enjoy without even noticing.
Thankful for beautiful fall days, the days we remember to get us through the winter. Days working with my husband and our dogs. Days working cows. Riding horses. A life that God providentially provided.
If someone had asked me ten years ago or five years ago what I hoped for in my heart of hearts…it was this. Isn’t God kind and good?
This picture says a lot. It says a lot about the kind of man I married, the sort of husband who dismisses his wife from the kitchen on her birthday so she can go read while he makes supper for her family that HE invited over for her special day.
We are so good at overlooking the beautiful kindnesses our closest people gift to us. May it not be so.
Today was Reformation Sunday (Reformation Day is Tuesday), and it seemed appropriate on this quiet evening to watch one of my favorite movies, Amazing Grace. What an inspiring story, and inspiring because it is true. One man against the entire British parliamentary system, who, with persistence, defeated the slave trade in England. History reminds us that there have always been those that opposed God, but then there have always been those that God has chosen to stand up and fight for what is right.
Men like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, preachers and doctors and commonplace political activists, Barbara Spooner who became the wife of Wilberforce, people whom God used to accomplish such a monumental task. Those who are imperfect, yet called by God. Fearful, but relying on God for strength. Checkered pasts, yet trusting in a merciful God. Ashamed, yet lifting their heads to gaze on a Savior.
If you haven’t seen this film, I highly recommend it…It came out almost 20 years ago, which is hard to believe, and as someone who enjoys British film it is fun to realize now the high caliber of the cast, a number of whom were already celebrated, and others who became celebrated over the last nearly 20 years. The storytelling is excellent, the music is beautiful, and as someone who also enjoys historic costuming, that is also done with excellence.
They were, however, incorrect to have a late-1700s William Wilberforce sing the song “Amazing Grace” to the tune we are familiar with, since that tune wasn’t published until the 1830s. Oh, well. You can’t get everything right all the time.
Song Dog Journal 