Saturday, Lola, one of our 'free' Dorsets, broke her water but showed no signs of labor. I went out every 1/2 hour or so to check her. Her cervix wasn't opening and there were no signs of lambs.
Yesterday, Sunday, my daughter and her husband came up from Connecticut for a visit and leg of lamb for dinner. Lola is looking like she is considering labor.......... Jerry takes his John Deere with the bucket on it to shovel/plow a path to the backhoe. I requested prayer for God's will to be done from my friends at Christian Artisans (@ Yahoo! groups). Jerry gets done and I ask him to come in for a cup of coffee and to give God time to intercede. Yup! Like I really think God needs to take his time. No! It is me, the mere human dragging her feet toward the inevitable... But then the backhoe wouldn't start. So I started to hope. By then, Valery and Paul arrive and we stop to visit with them.
Val & I go out to meet the new lambs and to check on Lola. The longer we 'lamb watch' the more evident it becomes that she is in extreme pain and we need to euthanize her. And I realize that her lambs have also died inside her. (Just confirmed the vet's suspicions.)
So, I take out some bread, get her away from the rest of the flock and lead her outside feeding her bread all the way... I give her to Jerry and head into the barn to feed the bread to the rest of the flock. They are making so much noise inside, I don't think they knew what was going on. Jerry takes her to our sheep cemetery, and decides to try the backhoe one more time. And guess what!! It starts! See, God knew what He was doing all along. Why do I question Him? He gave me time to spend with Lola and He let us know that we did the right thing. I wish He would let us know what happened and if we could prevent it from happening again.
But these things are part of farming life. And the more animals we have on our farm, the greater the chances of it happening again.
So, good bye Lola. You will be missed!! And thank you Lord for lessons learned and prayers answered.
3 comments:
I'm sorry about Lola. I'm glad you had the wisdom to act quickly to minimize suffering for her. Seems you were God's instrument here.
Thank you!
Sorry about Lola. She was blessed to have her for her caregiver here on earth!
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