Eleven below last night. Twin goats born yesterday afternoon. The first born froze to death. Or maybe she was a still born. Her mama is a new mother. Maybe she didn’t know to tend it proper. To lick it dry. To encourage her. Maybe her mama didn’t know what was happening to her, didn’t know what to do with this squishy thing that lay on the ground and the other one coming out of her. By the time we found her the one baby was dead and the other was trying to live. This morning another baby born, but it came head and leg first, the other leg bent backwards, jammed up inside the mama. The mama sat exhausted, defeated, for how long? Had this baby made its entrance in the early morning, while the night was ending, when the freezing temperatures were their harshest? The baby’s eyes are swollen, mouth clogged with dirt. It may make it.
I am sewing a quilt. Full of flowers and pinks. Tropical flamingos. Hope. Spring. It is the dead of winter with 4 months left to go. The baby runs around with the fabrics, tossing them over her head, laughing and tossing them again. I stitch rows of flowers and hope and warmth. My husband is in the barn coaxing the kids to life, nudging them to nurse, to stand, to snuggle their mamas. My baby rubs her eyes, she is tired, waking at dawn each morning to nurse. The sun’s rising is her greatest joy.