Snapshots: What Hope Looks Like

This post is going to be the counterpoint to the stories from Ukraine have been dominating the news this weekend. It is all terrible, and frightening, and none of us know what's really happening or how it will turn out.

And none of us can do one thing about it, either. 

What we can do is focus on the things in our lives that bring us hope, rather than despair. Everyone has those, hard as they can be to see through the forest of anxiety sometimes.

Here are some of mine.

Instead of heading down the road with the dogs this weekend for my morning walk, I've been walking to the adjacent pasture to check on . . .

LAMBS!

With unfortunate timing, the ewes started giving birth this week. The frigid, windy weather has not been at all hospitable to new life, however, and we did lose a few. But there are four healthy lambs at the moment--two girls and two boys--and one of them I actually watched being born through the window of the kitchen right at sunrise.

I didn't want to get too close, so I don't know if you can even see it, but it's right there at its mom's nose.

I was very grateful that that particular ewe chose to have her lamb where I could see it from the house--the others were way out in the pasture when they gave birth--so I could see that this lamb was not getting up and nursing as quickly as it should. 

Given that it was only five degrees outside, that was not surprising.

A. wrapped it in his wool coat with a jar of hot water to warm it, and then gave it some homemade glucose solution (water, salt, and honey) to give it the strength to stand up and start nursing. It did eventually make it up and figure out nursing, and it's doing well now.

The horses waited patiently for their hay and ice breaking during the post-natal check-ups.

Aaaaanytime, lady.

Bill was not amused when I came right by the fence with a small piece of metal rather than a flake of hay.

That camera is not going to satisfy the inner pony.

The cabbages and kohlrabi are growing happily under their lights in the children's bathroom, and there are signs of plant life outside, too.

Daffodils, yay!

I totally gave up on covering the one garden box that had some things growing in it over the winter, but a few lettuce plants actually survived in one corner of it. Soon I'll be planting more lettuce seeds, arugula, and radishes.

Seeds will grow, lambs will frolic, and life will go on. Amen.