Nature is cruel and most of all it is cruel to animals or birds that are not perfect. After watching the pea-chicks roll around their little box, both with one leg out at a right angle, wings spread, miserable, unable even to stand to eat, I decided that there was no way these birds were going to make it in the big playground I call my barn yard. They could not scratch at the ground nor launch themselves onto a roost. They would be cleaned up by predators if not the others of their species. If I had caught this problem within 48 hours of their hatching it is possible I could have fixed it but I didn’t so it was kindest to the birds to put them down. It was sad but the right choice. 
Sometimes it is best to step in before nature has its way. Nature is not always kind. I called a man who breeds peacocks and he said it was best not to let them drag on, it never ends well, he said. Now we are left with one little healthy pea-chick who almost immediately decided that my knee or my neck were good places to be. She (or he) is now living out beside the turkeys for company when she is not snuggling into our pockets. This will be interesting.
I know I did the right thing but it still feels rotten.
More storms blew in yesterday, more rain. I took this shot of Sheila in her paddock to show you the water everywhere then looked up and saw this coming straight at us.
Then in the afternoon the sun came out and with it the most shocking humidity. I almost never sweat (preferring to Glow like all well brought up ladies) but yesterday as I was milking the cow I could taste the salt of my sweat as it ran down my face.
I am going to have to get higher gumboots. When I go out through this gate to bring Lady Aster in for the milking I am sinking dangerously close to the tops of my boots. I need fishing waders!
The forecast looks like the storms might be tailing off. After today that is.
Yesterday the clouds were so low Amanda and I stood out in the field watching them in awe. They kept dropping towards us. I imagined I could drag out the ladder and standing on it reach up into the cloud, watching my hand disappear. It was getting dark and was very still. Then a small cloud broke away from the others and dipped even lower. Right above our heads. It rolled gently like a wave coming into shore. It was a significant intentional movement and just for that second it began to lift leaves and small sticks off the ground, playfully twirling them right in front of our faces into a perfect miniature whisper of a whirlwind. Glancing small puffs of wind off our skin. It was just for a moment. But a powerful moment. Before the little cloud stopped its playing and rolled on.
Soon after these playful clouds were replaced with the dense black menacing ones and we raced the animals in and trotted quickly back to the house as the wind rose and the rains started again.
After the sun came out I took Tima and Tane into the field with Sheila to begin my plan to combine these two groups for the winter (Sheila is a group of her own). I don’t think Tane was able to breed Tima this time either so these three pigs being pets, it makes sense that they might keep each other warm over the winter. Poppy might be busy elsewhere. Sheila gave a small start upon seeing Tima steam past then turned her attention back to her puddle. I think they might get on. Sheila is such a good girl. Poppy too. I am so impressed with Poppy’s maturity and gentleness, often sleeping across the door of the babies snug so they can pop out for a feed then go straight back to bed in the night.
I hope you have a lovely day. I am so sorry about the peachicks but I am fairly sure the fault was the incubator being too low. I will not make that mistake again.
Love your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
49 responses to “Natures Way?”
You did what you HAD to do. It is never easy. Love your posts.
I’m sorry, miss c. You are more tender than nature would be. I heard there might be tornadoes yesterday in your area, and kept you in my thoughts. Humid out here in CO again today, but not as muggy as yesterday.
C, you are one tough cookie. You are also wise and humane. Sorry about all the rain, we could desperately use some.
The sacredness of life is always so evident even when we must uproot fledgling plants, trees, and mercifully end a creature’s life. Your writing on the cloud was superb. I’m writing next to the rain, and I tell them in my most beguiling voice, “Hey dark clouds. Are you man/men enough to come and see us in California,” don’t think they’ll notice me as I ‘m quite dry over here in our desert. Best to you.
You did the right thing girl! Sometimes I think it is either selfish or guilt that makes people prolong the life of a sick or badly disfigured animal. As hard as it it can be, we have to stop and step back from ourselves and thing solely for the animal/bird in question.
Big Hugs
We trust your judgment so it’s good to know you do too. And everything else seems to be going along swimmingly (err… literally). Poppy and her brood are reason enough for celebration… the FB clip is wonderful 🙂
What magical clouds. Thank you for painting such a picture that I felt I were watching the dance myself.
Well, that’s a heck of a bummer about the peachicks. Very sorry. So you don’t think Tima is bred? Good news about Poppy doing so well!
I’m so sorry about the pea chicks. These things happen. It’s never fun when it does.
Sometimes it’s really really hard not to take it personally, and it’s a hard soul who doesn’t regret having to put a merciful end to a creature. And hindsight is always 20 20 so it sure doesn’t pay to beat yourself up with ‘woulda coulda shouldas’. I finally learned that lesson.
I know women glow, men perspire and horses sweat but since middle age smacked me upside the head my ‘glow’ tends to run off my nose and drip off my ears!
Also, sometimes mother nature can be a right nasty old b—-h!
Well pooh! You are getting exactly (maybe worse) the kind of weather we had in May. I’m so sorry about the peachicks. It’s tough to make decisions like that, but it is being responsible and kind. We are the stewards of the land and the caretakers of the animals. Those little spirits will come back again… they are here to help us have understanding.
Really sorry, and of course you did what was necessary but I well know that feeling of dull weight that lingers when the necessary thing is also such a hard thing. Sorry.
Strange that I wrote a poem today about having to put our horse down years ago. Grief rears its strange head at the most inopportune moments. Now our rescued 8 year-old hounddog has some neurological issue where her left eye and mouth droop and weep, and the vet told me best and worst case, etc. It’s always touchy domesticating animals, which is what we do when we bring them home to live with us. No matter how they are treated – and ours are always treated spectacularly well, as no doubt are yours – life and death happen. Struggling happens in the animal world as well as the human world, and though it has seemed unfair to me as well, when I really sit still and attend to my question “why must this happen to the pure, the innocent, the …” what I receive back is that it is our collective creation/illusion that the only way to evolve, create and grow on earth is through contrast and adversity. No matter the outpicturing life chooses to assume (vegetable, mineral, animal, human), the experience is the same, only by degrees depending on myriad factors. But oh, what we get in return! Beauty! Abundant miracles at every turn, hidden in the most unlikely places! Appreciation for this tenuous existence in Paradise. Aloha and love, Ms. C.
It sounds like you had a bit of a rotten day. Yet I know you will keep smiling. 🙂