Saturday, February 23, 2013

Life Lesson

There are many lessons you learn living on a farm.  One that has hit home lately is the life lesson.  Not the lesson of life, but the life lesson.  How important life is.  On the farm we have life born often.  Spring and summer is full of new life.  But what about the old life?  We recently had tragedy hit when our best cow suddenly past.  She was in the prime of her life and is a cow that can never be replaced!  With every passing of life you are reminded about how important every life really is.  Annie was our family milk cow and a wonderful nurse cow.  She would take any calf of any age at any stage and raise it.  She never had issues with us touching, catching, or handling any calves that she had.  She was a very important life that cant be gotten back.

Since the beginning of November (four months ago) we have had 5 births here on the farm.  Annie had her calf, then we had our baby girl, then Linhe had a heifer calf, then Blackie had a bull calf (was lost to coyotes), and then the newest one just two days ago is another bull calf.  We are even awaiting another birth from Bella at any moment.  The lesson of importance of life is an ever on going event on a farm.  It is more then a matter of being important because it is a life.  It is more then an emotional reflex saying it is a baby and must survive.  The importance of every life hinges on our very own survival.  We don't just live on a farm, we live off the farm.  The new heifer will be our new cow in two years, bringing a new life into our farm every year.  The bull calves (unless specially kept to bred) will be our food in the fall.  Every chick hatched is either breeding stock or going to freezer camp.  When your life depends on the life of another, the importance of that life is so much higher then you could ever have imagined before.

This was the first lesson I learned when I moved to the farm.  Life of your livestock comes first.  Their lives have to be of the utmost importance for you to eat and live.  The healthier they are, they healthier you are!

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