Friday, December 19, 2008

The dark side of a farm


The bright side of farm life is the fact that it is full of life. There are chickens, ducks and animals. There are eggs being laid and baby animals being born. There are wild berry trees, fruit trees and nuts. There are gardens and flowers being planted. With all of this life, the dark side is death. It is inevitable that death will occur on a farm. It can be quite emotional. This emotions are very great when your attached to some of this life. When we first came to our farm, my friend gave us a chick. She was very sweet and so friendly. She was getting quite big and her cage was to messy to keep her in the house. She had a very large cage and we decided to put it outside right next to our back door. It was during Ramadan, and I was up preparing the food in the morning. I checked on the chick, and she was fine. As we were eating, I heard her cry. It was too late. There was a feral cat that had grabbed her through the cage. This was our first death. The kids were all crying, but it was soon healed with a little time and twelve new chickens. Our next story is about a young sheep. We got our first new sheep. There were four, andthey were all young sheep. Three of them were around 4 to 6 months. One was a baby who had been orphaned. His mother had died from a bug bite. He was doing great when we first got him. However, we think that he had ate more than he was used to and became sick. He was our second death. The kids were sad, but better than the chicken. The most recent death was my friends' horse. My friends had brought one of their large horses to my pasture. The horse had been nursing her baby and the baby was ready to be weaned. The mother horse had become very thin from the nursing and she was also older. While she was in my pasture she did not seem to gain weight. Last week, she must have felt ill and sat on the ground. It was very cold and she was unable to get up after that. After spending the entire day with the vet trying to get her better, she died. This is all what can happen with life on the farm. I think that I do not want to have too many animals as pets. The attachment to them is really hard when something happens to them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

MASHALLHA MASHALLAH MAAsHALLH. I was so excited when I found your blog on the Muslim homeschool site!!! The life you are living is EXACTLY my dream. Well we were living that dream before my husband was laid off from his job of 14 yrs. It was heart breaking to leave our beautiful little farm in Northern CA. Alhumdulillah we found homes for all the animals and were on to the east coast for my husband to get his PhD. We have a year and a half left,,,,then it is back to CA for us inshallah.

We have experience raising animals and growing our own food. I would LOVE to talk with you more about your experiences. Oh and we also homeschool our 7 children, well only 4 now, the two oldest are done, and the youngest has yet not begun alhumdulillah. Right now I have chickens, guinea fowl, and one goat due to kid in Aprin inshallah. We raised 15 turkeys for meat last year and inshallah will get more this spring. I will be new to milking too! I am looking forward to it. When I was in CA I was fortunate enough to have a friend with a cow to get fresh milk from. I miss the fresh milk and cream soooo much. Inshallah everything will go ok with our kidding and I can have my own fresh milk again.

Thank you for the new inspiration your blog has given me.
As Salaam wa laikum
Michaele