If you live anywhere within several hundred kilometers of where I do (Toronto), I’m going to safely assume you, too, are ready to poke your own eyes out with a dull spoon if this damn winter doesn’t f%#k the f%#k off really soon. Until then, here’s a little vicarious treat to tide you over: spring farm babies! I recently returned from a volunteering trip to Honduras, Central America, where my students and I went to shoot video productions for the charitable organization El Hogar and volunteer on their agricultural school farm, and it was baby season on the farm. It’s good to know it’s spring somewhere!

Winter-weary people, I give you…BABY CHICKS!

I give you…BABY GOATS!

 

I give you…BABY COW!

PUPPIES!

PIGLETS!

A Family of Turkeys!

Unfortunately not all the farm babies were healthy. The little lamb below was born too early. One night about 10 o’clock a wolf came visiting the farm looking for a meal, and made one of a hen and some of her chicks pictured above, and scared the ewe below into early labour. In the morning, not realizing what had happened the night before, I came to the goat & sheep pen for a visit and the little lamb below was lying on its side, struggling, while its mother bleated piteously. The mother can’t feed it unless it can stand up on its own and reach her udder. We all thought the lamb would be dead very soon. I ran and got a towel to wrap it so it wouldn’t be cold in the cool air of 6 am. Miraculously, later in the day, I could see that the lamb was making incredible efforts to get itself up, and by late afternoon, it was standing! I never thought it would make it that far. I took the picture below using my zoom lens because I didn’t want to get anywhere near these two and risk disturbing the delicate feeding procedure they were trying to undertake. I went to bed that night worried, but optimistic that this lamb might just beat the odds.

Early the next morning things weren’t looking so good. The lamb was back on its side and weak. I helped a couple of the boys on the farm capture the ewe and lay her down on her side, and we gently force-fed the lamb with her teats. Unfortunately the lamb died right in my hands just a few moments later, and I’ll tell you what — it was super-traumatizing for this city-slicker. The mother was traumatized, too; she didn’t stop bleating for 2 days straight, maybe more — we had to leave to go home later that same day so I don’t know for sure. I try to make myself feel better by remembering that I did my best to make the lamb comfortable and happy in the few hours that it was alive on this earth.

And I focus on the happy, healthy goat babies that made me laugh and smile the whole time I was on the farm, and I am content. 🙂