The first calf of the season came on a sunny Tuesday morning in February. Then another, and another! Full of grace, the vitality of spring was upon us. To clarify, this isn’t quite the kind of vitality where flowers are popping up in pretty blooms adding color to the land, or even the kind where the sun shakes off all the aches of the winter air; this is the uncertain kind of early spring just quaking into existence. Feeble, needy, and susceptible, it seems like it struggles to maintain itself. All that it brings can only thrive through constant attention and upkeep. This is the exhausting time of spring where winter and spring fight for dominance.
I awoke in the wee hours wondering if the calves were dry and warm enough to make it through the night. Much like I was as a new mother, spending so much energy wrapping up my babies and holding them close to my chest to keep them warm, I worried. I feared the infinite power of winter and the effect it has on such tender little ones in the early spring. I looked out on the field and wondered what predator might lurk. Coyote, flu, respiratory ailments, and any sort of unseen evils threatening to come between me and what’s mine.
The harsh morning came with its ice in the air, but the sun was out. Exiting the farm road, I saw two mamas with a baby. My heart paused momentarily. Fear began to grip me, “Where is the other one?” My eyes scanned the area: close in the grass, far in the field, and even up onto the hill. Nothing. A few hours later, my husband called inciting the same pause of my heart. I knew it before he said it, “that little heifer is dead.”
My analytical self rattled off questions and suggestions. “We should have checked her once more before dark. Should we have iodined her umbilical cord? We could have checked the pasture during the night.” In the evening, none of that had mattered. She was fine--nursing, running around, and healthy as could be. She had passed early in the morning as her body was still limp and the stiffness of death hadn’t moved in on her yet despite the chill and frost surrounding her.
My emotional self as a mother shivered with sadness for the mama. She wanted a calf, letting the living one nurse on her even though it wasn’t hers. Wandering up to the hill, she nudged the little one, licked its cold face, and returned often. Brief thoughts of losing more calves, quietly by weather or viciously by predators flashed in my mind’s eye. I wanted nothing more than to reach out for all that I thought was mine, but I couldn’t.
The cold nature of spring has arrived. Bitter and uncertain, it isn’t the weather or the unknown forces that impact our outcomes, but rather spring exposes my own selfish mentality then forces me to relinquish control. I realized there isn’t a way to provide infinite care for our herd, no matter how hard I may try. What I thought was mine wasn’t mine at all. It’s probably just human nature to try to control what we think is our livelihood and progeny, but it isn’t our place to do so. This is what makes us human and subject to Mother Nature’s whims. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge that if we are going to have animals, some will die despite our best efforts to learn, adjust, and change the outcome. More so, we have to accept that these occurrences aren’t influenced one bit by our insignificant attempts at constant attention or upkeep. The good or the bad.
Wednesday morning with all of its frigid weather and sentiment marred the beauty of the sunshine and birth we had on Tuesday. Birth in itself is an amazing experience, and those feelings of the power of something so much bigger than ourselves continue to manifest in our lives on the ranch where we witness many births and in counter, deaths. Spring is that reminder that God brings us new life in constant intervals. Though sometimes inhospitable, it comes when He sees it fit, regardless of our intervention or grasping for something we want to lay claim to. Because with birth, eventually will come death. As we surrender to that, knowing the cold will sometimes set in, it isn’t long before time will pass, and the sun will return to illuminate the vitality spring brings regardless of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment