Gratitude

I'm grateful for ponies. Isn't everyone?

The snow slid off the heifer barn roof yesterday and I am grateful. I remember when the horses...long gone fellows that gave us so much fun....used to stand next to that barn to soak up winter sun. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, they would bolt up the hill and turn and glare back down, manes and tails all a flutter, and eyes as wild as winter.

And then the snow would cascade off with a thunderous crash. Must be they could hear it cracking loose and got away before it could get them. 

Although it makes a big mess next to the barn and a lot of noise and all, I am grateful that the men who built these barns built them steep with steel roofs so they dump their snow before it hurts anything.

All over the Northeast barns are giving up under the snow load. Animals have been injured and killed and hopes and dreams and happiness destroyed. My heart aches for these poor cows.

 For the people who care for them as well. If you live with animals and have a heart, seeing them in distress is more painful that you would believe. Many a night's sleep has been lost around here when some cow or calf wasn't doing right and we weren't sure how to fix her.I can't imagine how awful all this must be for the farmers involved.

I pray for a respite from winter while things get cleared up and some of this snow gets gone. I also hope that the ignorant animal rights jerks who comment on heart-wrenching stories like this find jobs or something, so they can stop feeding off the misery of others. They know nothing about cows. Nothing. But they sure want to lecture people who do.

I guess there are some awful floods to the south as well. The guys are always complaining about our hills, and wishing for a farm on the level....all I can think is what the floods over the past few years would have done to us if we weren't perched up here. Today I am grateful for hills.

I am also grateful, more than you could possibly imagine, that the lambs have gone to the barn.

Lambs are LOUD! It is so quiet here this morning.....and they are happy to be able to race around the barn every time Liz goes down to give them their bottles. 

Lamb in a turkey tractor

If by chance you are one of those animal rights folks who is just stopping by to harass a caring farmer...little Klondike stays in the turkey tractor when no one is in the barn so the foxes, and weasels, and coyotes, and fishers, and owls, and eagles, and all the myriad other predators that share our land with us can't eat him.

Update...ht to a FB friend. Did you read this story? How could anyone call themselves an animal lover and do, or condone, something like this? Sick bastards.