Good morning! I know I haven’t been posting much. The last 4..

Good morning! I know I haven’t been posting much. The last 4-5 days I have been taking care of a very sick sheep. A little backstory…
I grew up in a farming family. I’ve never been able to get that out of my system. About ten years ago I started a small hobby farm business. I would deliver weekly baskets of veggies and fresh eggs to customers, supplied local ingredients to a province-wide Localvore Iron Chef competition (which I attended as one of the judges). I’ve had ducks, pigs, goats, chickens, and sheep. My sheep came as twin sisters, and they were Southdown Babydolls. Or teddy bear sheep. The last year has been ridiculously hard to get done and seemed like no matter what everything always went wrong or ended up being 10x harder than expected. I haven’t gotten any new animals in a long time, and came to the decision that as they age and pass I was not going to be replacing with anyone new. Over the last few weeks I have had a terrible situation with a fox that got the last five of my hens and for the last ten days I was down to just one solitary sheep 😢

She came down with a case of bloat, which isn’t a very good thing. I will spare most details but for four days I have been sitting in the grass and mud and hay, and manure up to my knees, as I tried as many different methods as I knew about and used in the past to no avail. It’s been very hot here and she was supposed to get sheared today. I set up a sprinkler and she was in and out of it, keeping cool. She seemed to perk up and I really, really thought we were out of the woods and on a safe track. Two nights ago she went down and didn’t get back up, I sat with her and she died with her head in my lap. Every farmer has their method of aftercare when a large animal passes. Many just move the remains to the back and let natural weather and critters do their thing. But I dug a hole. All day yesterday. In 40°C I dug and dug, through rocks and big tree roots and clay. I worked until it was just about waist deep and buried her at sunset. My calves are on fire and my arms and shoulders feel like they will fall off, and even though I wore gloves I have blistered hands. Today I woke up to an empty barn and sad. But, nothing can last forever, and the sadness is an important feeling to let yourself feel.