Time to recharge after 20 days of sickness - what better way than to take some time for a walk with a friend. The weather today is around 60, sun. My body needs it. I haven't had time or energy to spend much quality time with myself, let alone the animals, or my husband. I'm feeling good though, just still a bit 'quite', but the worst is over. I did manage to crack a rib or two from coughing so hard. Good grief.
We await the final ewe to lamb. She is so sick of me lifting her tail and checking the hardness of her udder, that she sighs when I appear in the morning - "Are your hands warm?" she asks with her eyes...
We lost one of my favorite bantie hens, Zuchhi, on Sunday. I don't know why. I found her dead by the barn in the late afternoon. No signs of distress, wounds, puncture marks or bugs. She had appeared normal all week, and was laying. She was a comical frizzle, with a unique personality. I held her in the barn - surrounded by the newly loaded 2 tons of hay - and cried and cried. The crying made me cough, and together the coughing and crying disturbed Pino Blangiforti. He arrived at my side, and stood quitely with me. I was crying for that darn little chicken, but also for my father.
