Good Morning Mabel!

Last night very late, sweet Mabel joined the world. She was pretty stuck, so this morning we feel very lucky that mama and baby are both doing well. Changing relationships At the start of this kidding season, we said goodbye to a 10-year-old doe named Greta. She was a beauty with zebra stripes on her face and an attitude that matched. She is the only goat in the herd who sometimes snuck up on small children in the pasture and head butted them, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to surprise them. She earned the affectionate name grumpy Greta. Last year she had a sweet doeling, as beautiful as her mother but with a gentle dear temperament. She also sidles quietly up to people and the pasture, but is always looking for affection. She was inseparable from her mother, following her around the field and spooning with her when they lay down to take a nap. Greta got sick quickly, went off food, and by the time we organize ourselves to bring her to the vet, gently lifting her into the hatchback of our small Prius with some delicious hay for her to snack on, she was very weak. I curled up with her in the back of the car rather than beginning the drive. My instinct told me that she didn’t have much time and would rather die here. Within minutes she was gone. For the first couple days it was terribly painful to go out to the field and listen to Taylor calling for her mom. Anyone who has lost somebody they love could feel her pain. But a beautiful thing began to happen. Taylor is auntie May had not been bred this year due to her age, and was missing out it seemed on the experience of having kids. She is an independent goat and keeps mostly to herself, but she made room for Taylor in her daily pattern. This spring as Taylor prepared to have her own baby, I often found her curled up taking comfort from auntie May. Last night at about midnight, Taylor had a big healthy girl. This delivery marks the end of 2022 kidding season so it feels especially precious. She looks nothing like her mother or grandmother, but I like to imagine in the years ahead she will embody the best of them both and add some of her new ingredients to the herd as her personality develops. When I came out this morning after a few hours of sleep, Taylor looked proud and content. I had to capture that for you in this video. The delivery was not an easy one, in the wild there’s a good chance that neither mother or baby would have survived. And as I grieve my own mother, I see that the parallel extends even here. It is never easy to fill the spaces which used to be filled by those most dear to us. When beautiful energy fills a space in our heart, mind and routine in the form of a relationship with someone or something else, it’s devastating to lose it. That space feels empty and gaping as we grieve a loss or change. As humans, we know we will never find anything exactly the same to fill it and that can be hard to face. But the herd teaches us, that relationships are always changing and that new and different and equally beautiful energy can fill the spaces and make us feel whole again. Sometimes we want to leave the empty sad space there as a tribute to what we lost, but perhaps the best way to honor those relationships is to welcome in new ones that are sustaining and joyful. Perhaps today Taylor and Mabel can be our inspiration to believe it’s possible!