Ma and her two lambs are setting in to life. She is a wonderful mother, her lambs are sweet, small, delicate things, I am attached to these three. In the animal world, there is a tendency to see all animals in difficult as rescue animals, in need of saving. That is not my view. Ma is not a rescue animal because she struggled to give birth. Zelda is not a rescue animal because she lost her lamb. They are our partners, not our piteous dependents.
A few weeks ago, I saw Ma as a big and dumb sheep, I paid little attention to her. Motherhood has brought out many other qualities that are admirable and wonderful to see. I never stop learning from animals, if you listen, they never stop teaching me.
We share the nature of the world, we cannot alter it for them or for us. We can only do the best we can for as long as we can.
Animals accept life, they endure it and they remind me to live joyfully, to be caring as well as accepting, to respect the true nature of animals and the natural world. We are bottle feeding the lambs once, sometimes twice a day, but they are not especially hungry. Ma is slowly gaining the weight she lost feeding these two lambs in utero, these three are somewhat off in their own world, grazing on their own, nesting comfortably in the pole barn. I love photographing them. We cannot curb the sorrows of the world, but we can speak joyfully of our lives.
More lessons in these weeks about the real live of real animals, about the need to respect them as the alien creatures that we are, not as our children with fur.