Death

Death comes creeping on little tiny feet. He doesn't carry a scythe and he does not wear a black cloak and hood. Death comes knocking on the door with grasshoppers in one hand and dry dust in the other. Death opens his mouth to speak and dry wind is all you hear. Death has eyes as hot as the sun and as unyielding as time itself.

Sorrow comes hand in hand with Death. She is chained to Death and cannot get away. When Death comes to your door, Sorrow leaves a little piece of herself behind. Sorrow comes in the form of lonely paddocks with lambs with no moms. Sorrow sounds like baas from lambs calling for mothers that will never see the light of day. Death and Sorrow are knocking at my door.

I am looking out my window and know that on Saturday we will have to make decisions that I do not want to make. In the spring, when all our lambs were born I thought I would be able to keep a couple, but then as the season progressed I thought that there might be a problem feeding them and so I was satisfied to pick out a few of the ewes and the two rams and a couple of the old sheep that we think of as pets and just keep them. This week the axe fell. My supply of hay has run out and if I want to keep any animals I will seriously have to cull my flock. I want to keep the alpacas and there are 6 of them, and Daughter #1 has the horse which we will have to keep. But everything else.... well, there's not a lot of hope. I am hoping that I can find hay for the alpacas and the horse, I will be lucky if I can get that. I would really like to keep the two rams and two breeding ewes.... probably Fanny and Nellie but the rest of my full grown ewes and withers may have to be killed for sausage meet. While the lambs will be fattened on grain and slaughtered. I am very worried. Right now I am rationing the hay for all of the animals and Daughter #1 has to take her horse out to the side of the road where the grass grows on the south side in the shade of the trees and lets her graze for hours at a time. But what do we do in the winter..... that's what I would like to know.

It is so dry and hot.... it is scary.....

This is what Death feels like.... the hopelessness of the unknown....