Luna, the new lamb born on the 29th February in a leap year, died today. We named her after the emerging new moon; but having waxed in the womb she waned out of it.
She failed to suckle, so we did what we could, what we knew to do, milking Thistle and feeding wee Luna. But she just got sleepier and sleepier and I knew that we were going to lose her.
One learns a lot from a death. I’ve learned that despite my books and my reading I know too little about lambs. I’ve also learned, hard, the lesson about colostrum that all the books underline. I’m going to have to learn how to intubate a lamb – something else I was unequipped, and unprepared, to do.
It’s a bloody shame that something has to die for me to learn these lessons.
Agriculture: learning by dying.
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