Saturday, August 23, 2008

Poddy lamb........


Last night on a hill, we found two skinny sheep belonging to we knew not who? Lying on their side to weak to move with the eye pointing up to the heavens pecked out and their heads pillowed in a pool of congealed blood. One of these was a ewe that had obviously given birth, because we found the lamb, one that had never had a chance to suckle, bleating as it tried unsuccessfully to suckle a rough tree trunk. The lamb ran to us, the only living things, moving about on the hill which it had probably seen all day. It was a strong lamb, willing to fight for the life its mother had died to produce. She was being carried home as I returned with a rifle to send her mother and the other sheep home away from the misery which engulfed them. This is the way of life, there is misfortune and luck and all manner of other factors that are the yin and yang of life.

So two grown sheep have been returned from whence they came and we now have a poddy lamb; a small animal that will be solely reliant on us for some months and then partially reliant on us for a short time after that. This is not the first baby that we have looked after and it won't be the last, and we wonder? But just keep putting on foot in front of the other. It would have made a difference had we not picked up the lamb and left it for the fox, it would not have been better or worse, just different. We did nothing marvellous or wonderful, as the fox would not have done anything wrong. We just followed our natural inclinations as they are and the feelings that moved them in the moment.