Tuesday, 7 August 2018

Short-Lived


Heading into town yesterday along the back roads passing farmland and bush, my heart went out to the dirty bedraggled newborn lambs alongside their mothers in rain soaked paddocks. We expect newborn lambs to be pure white and woolly, prancing around, kicking up their heels and wriggling their tails as they play with their mates and suckle from mum. Not knowing what provision the local farmers put in place during lambing season, I wondered at the conditions under which these poor ewes might have given birth, and the rude awakening to the world their lambs would have received at being deposited on the cold, wet ground maybe in the middle of the night during one of the deluges we’ve had of late. Because of the wintry conditions, not only were these lambs far from white, there were other little telltale bundles of wet wool that obviously hadn’t survived the ordeal. Abandoned where they lay, it was a sad reminder of the harsh reality of nature.


Cold grass bed
one lamb frolicking
one lamb dead




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