Even as we ate a fine meal and celebrated the New Year January 1st in our warm, comfortable home, I remember looking out the window toward our pasture and having the feeling that 2013 might be a year that could bring changes to our little farm. After all, three of our animal friends were old, and, though our vet, Leah, and I were doing the best we could to keep the critters mobile and comfortable with various medications and lots of TLC, there comes a time when living things die.
I had a feeling.
A week ago I wrote about the death of our goat Pumpkin. I wrote about burying her here on our place, and told how a kindly neighbor had brought over a loaner sheep to be a buddy for our one remaining sheep, Smokey. Happily, the two sheep seemed to bond almost instantly. They grazed together, and, at night, slept close to one-another under the same tree. We called the loaner sheep “Dolly” and I shot a number of pictures this past week of Smokey and Dolly.
Yesterday morning I awoke and could hear Dolly’s baahs coming from the barn, but she sounded agitated. I went to the barn and found Smokey, dead. He had passed away sometime during the night. I buried Smokey yesterday afternoon, and Dolly’s owner came over with her truck and and took Dolly back home.
Our pasture is empty today. The only animals remaining in our barn are three old chickens who rarely lay eggs, and a big, oaf of a rooster who we named Randy Quaid Rooster.
We have three gardens near our barn and soon those gardens will begin producing. We’ll have strawberries in a week or two, and salad greens soon after that. The cycle of life continues here.
Someday we might invite neighbors to graze their critters in our now-empty pasture. For now we can’t get over how quiet things are without our sweet friends, Pumpkin and Smokey.
