February brought life and death to our little farm. We lost one of our goats during labor due to complications from pregnancy toxemia. I will spare you all the details, but we believe she was pregnant with triplets and both the mom and kids died before they could be delivered. It was the first loss of one of our dairy goats and it really felt devastating. But the next day, life goes on and there are farm chores to do and other animals that need to be attended to, so you go on. We had a successful kidding of our favorite dairy goat, Cameo. She had a buckling and a doeling. Then last weekend, our goat Matilda kidded a healthy buckling. We are expecting at least one more doe to kid out in March.
Bearded Acres White Pearl and Bearded Acres Cannonball
Kids getting positioned for photo shoot! ;)
At the same time that baby goats began to arrive, so did our postal shipment of 27 chicks! 11 meat chickens and 16 laying hens of various breeds. So to say that it has been busy around here is quite the understatement. February is also the month that we plant potato seeds, so the garden was worked, tilled and plowed into rows, and we have both Kennebec and Red potatoes again this year in the ground.
Near the end of the month, Rob and I attended the
Ignited By Truth Catholic Conference which takes place here in Raleigh. It is always so spiritually invigorating and encouraging to go to this conference. What a faith builder to hear such great speakers! Fr. Michael Gaitley, Abby Johnson, Leah Darrow, Julie and Greg Alexander were the big names there. My mother-in-law babysat for us and we were able to attend the whole day.
February is an odd time for us as the anniversary dates of both of our Triploidy babies bookend this month. Francis Marie (13 weeks gestation) on 2/6 and Mary Grace (21 weeks) on 2/28. The chances of having one baby with this condition are so low, but to have had 2 babies with triploidy and both dying during the same month of the year....it's just so unusual....hard to wrap my mind around this reality sometimes. Isabel and I were coming back from a play out in Durham the day before Mary Grace's anniversary, so we stopped by the cemetery (on the way home....which is normally way out of the way for us, so we seldom visit) to add some flowers.
The same tiny blue flowers were growing around the baby headstones that were there February 2009 when we buried her. I remarked about how Isabel picked a handful when she was nearly 2. She didn't remember. They happen to be my favorite flower even though I think they are just a wild grassy weed ;)
http://marygraceholmes.blogspot.com/2009/03/grave-marker.html
