Here Come the Lambs...

About a week and a half ago, the boys and I walked down the road to Kitty's to see if the lambs had started coming yet. There was only one. Yesterday after school, Charlie and Michael and I went back to find that a couple of dozen of them had since made their way into the world. A few with smallish babes remained penned off from the crowd, but many of them are together with their own moms and their mom's ewefriends. The ewes in the photo directly above this one are all still waiting to deliver. I'm hoping to get the boys over to see some actual birthing going on, and with so many left to come it looks like we have a fair shot of catching at least one.

This little lamb below captured our hearts most of all. She is so tiny she can't reach her mom's teat to nurse, so Kitty has been giving her a bottle. Her mom is right next to her though, and very fretful and anxious to have her baby with her. Kitty's partner James finally intervened and helped the mother ewe to nurse, which seemed to suit mother and baby just fine. Though she's small, the lamb seems healthy otherwise, and will hopefully grow quickly and soon be reunited with her mama.

Here they are together, having a little cuddle. I am right there with that ewe, remembering the overwhelming pride and love that came with holding my own newborns. I'm so happy for them.
More signs of spring all around us, coming soon.

Early Spring Walk

Sometimes I step outside my front door and pinch myself a little, for all the beauty that surrounds me every day. We've had the wettest winter on record this year in England, but that hasn't stopped the spring from coming. It's been mild and even a little sunny lately, so I was surprised last weekend when I walked outside and found everything covered in frost. The kale in my garden, the moss on the stone walls, the crocus and cow parsley stems were all dusted with an icy glitter. But as I walked through the woods the sun melted it all away, and back home in my garden the hawthorne blossoms opened their faces to the warm light. Another picture perfect day on the farm followed.

I'll post again soon about other things going on around here. The lambs are coming soon (some are already here), certain piglets are getting bigger and bigger, and our house is growing a new room. Until then, happy almost spring.

Staying An Artist

This post may strike you as self-indulgent, because I'm going to write about my son and the art he makes. But bear with me for a minute, because it's also about your child, and the art that s/he makes, too. Above is a photo of my four year old, getting ready to go on a road trip to Scotland with his dad. His suitcase is packed, but not with clothes or a toothbrush. That's his art suitcase, and like a true artist, he needs it on hand at all times. 

Picasso once famously quipped, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Like plenty of other kids, Michael loves to create. But even more than my other two boys, who also enjoy drawing and making, art is Michael's preferred activity. If I had to categorize his practice, I'd call him an assemblage artist. He likes to cobble together found materials, ones not necessarily found in our art cupboard, and create very interesting things. Here is a sampling:

 Above: pheasant feathers, paper towels and tape.

 Above: paper towels, paper, lemon, bubble container and green play doh in water.

 Above: Paper napkin, duct tape, masking tape, birthday candles and cupcake toppers.

Above, cow parsley stems, washi tape and ziplock bags.

He also practices more traditional drawing and sculpting, as seen below:

 Above: play doh apples

 Above: marker on paper

Above: ink on paper
And my favorite to date...

...charcoal, marker, paint and felt on paper.

Michael is fairly prolific, though his output seems to come in explosive bursts. I frequently stumble upon his sculptures in the most inconvenient of places (the middle of the kitchen floor just as I'm about to make dinner, in the bathtub before I want to take a shower), or find him using materials I'd rather he not play with (egg yolks, light bulbs). But over time I have tried to reflect upon and address Picasso's "problem" of how a child can remain an artist by being a helpful facilitator for Michael's creations. I prefer a tidy house, but I'm learning to live with the detritus of my kids' creative messes. I like to keep their "art" supplies in one place, but am realizing (I'm a little slow) the correlation between clear access and creative expression. Maybe it's precisely because the markers are kept in a box in a cupboard (accessible, but out of sight), while the eggs are kept on the kitchen counter in plain view, that Michael chooses the materials he does. Either way, today I'm trying to encourage his exploratory creations, rather than squash them with very unnecessary rules and boundaries about what is acceptable when it comes to making art. It was Van Gogh who said "If you hear a voice within you say 'You cannot paint', then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." To help a child remain an artist, I would amend that statement to read "If you hear your mother's voice telling you not to tape the door shut with an entire roll of scotch tape, then by all means tape the door shut with an entire roll of scotch tape, and your mother's voice will be silenced."

Saying Goodbye to Johnny

Almost a year ago, we adopted two orphan sheep. We kept them in a pen in the garage under a heat lamp, where they were bottle fed, held and coddled. We named them Johnny and Violet. Although we're omnivores, there was no question that these two animals would remain pets.

 Bringing them home.

The pen in the garage.

Feeding time.

As they grew, they were moved into a larger outdoor pen, where they got to know the horses, chickens and pigs with whom they'd be sharing a field.

We began taking them with us on walks, and they were as companionable as any dog. (One of my sons is allergic to dogs, so we sometimes improvise.)

They grew and thrived up in the field. And though they didn't need us to look after them anymore, they ran to us when we came to see them, and enjoyed a hearty scratch behind the ears.

Two days ago, I got a call from Kitty that Johnny had died in the night. The cause of his death is a complete mystery to us, but we all shared the grief of his passing. My boys responded with various degrees of sadness-ranging from silence to an outpouring of tears. They all keep asking "Why?" One sagely remarked, "Well. That's just life." 

Violet (above) seems very bereft, and though she still has the company of the other animals in the field, she'll likely be put in with some other sheep with the hope that she can adapt to their company. Sheep are not solitary animals. The lambing season begins again in a month or two, and the kids are already asking if we can get new babies, even though they know there is no replacing the one we lost.

The boys also wanted to know what will become of Johnny, and I explained about his body returning to the earth, possibly helping a tree to grow somewhere that will provide shade for another sheep in the future. I don't know if this was the right thing to say, and they have their own theories about these things. But I think they're right about one thing, whatever does happen, that's just life.