Do to my life being a bit of a melee (in a good way) and that I have a personal requirement to always try to post quality content, most of the time I tend to post every other day.
There have also been stretches where I haven't posted for a week or two. My diesel truck's engine blowing up 1600 miles from home in New Mexico springs to mind...
Anyway, I had a full day ahead of me today, as I hadn't been home for about four days or so, I had pallet and a half of laundry to catch up on and a very messy house to square away.
And to be honest, I kinda needed a day off. You know how it is, when you just need to do some non-writing activity. The weather was garbage outside (and still is), an almost snowing swirl of hail, sleet, and big ol fat stinging rain. I was happy to stay in my wood fire warmed abode and do domestic things like fold never ending sports wear, vacuum self-replicating piles of pet hair, and wash up all the dishes that were cluttering my counters.
The day was going well. Then my daughter, who had come home from school and gone out to clean her show calf's stall, came in and told me to, "come outside right now!"
I could tell by her excited tone that it was something pretty awesome.
Sitting on two separate posts in my barnyard were two juvenile bald eagles. Both of them were young enough that they didn't have their distinguished white heads yet, and the female, she was a beast, easily the size of a three year old kid.
They were just chilling in the barn yard, staring at the cows. With the weather being all weird, I wondered if they just stopped for a pit stop, but usually raptors touch down for a bit of a snack, and sure enough, the daughter and I discovered their snack.
That's were the sad part came in. My heifer had had a miscarriage.
Now, on a farm with livestock, you get to experience your fair share of sad circle of life things. Animals, especially young mammals, do lose their offspring on occasion. Thankfully here it has been a rare thing, but still, having her lose her baby three months before the little creature was due kinda really sucked.
Then, seeing the Nature Is Metal scene of the eagles enjoying their lucky bounty kinda stung a bit too.
I get it, things gotta eat. I mean, I raise cattle to eat, so I am no different, the situation was just a bit sad. I especially felt for my kiddo, she loves her heifer and was super excited for her first calf.
Me, I have been through this before, both as a farmer and a mother. It sucks, but it also happens, and it's better all the way around to embrace the moment of sadness and then move forward with the realization that life has to life. But dangit if it isn't gross and sad sometimes.
After closer inspection, it looks like the little calf wasn't developing correctly. Whether it was from genetics or environment there is really no way to know. Chloe (the heifer) is a club calf (breed) so who knows what kind of genetic soup is going on in her genetic code. I know I fed her an incredibly well-balanced diet, so I feel pretty confident about her nutrition during gestation, and I intentionally kept her out of the back ten acres because there are a lot of pines back there and chewing on those can cause abortions in livestock.
After explaining to the kiddo that it could have been a blessing, and making sure the cats and my little dog were secure in the house, I looked out at the feasting eagles. They have to eat too, and they are really quite gorgeous animals.
Except maybe to our resident raven. Man, that guy has a death wish. He keeps screaming obscenities at the eagles and dive bombing them of all things. He thinks the barnyard is his and that they shouldn't be crashing his pad.
I wish death hadn't crashed my pad today either, but for one to exist you have to have the other...
And as not most of the time, Most of the images in this post were taken on my daughter's Samsung Galaxy phone, with a couple snapped on the author's still alive and thriving iPhone. The pics aren't the greatest because we didn't want to get too close. The text divider image was made in Canva.
