Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Unembellished Miracles

We now have three calves at Kirkhaven Farm!  Violet and Yetta have given us two beautiful black heifers and Adelle just gave birth to an adorable bull calf.  Maggie should calve within a week or two.  Moola is due in August.  As I stand on my beloved brae and watch the babies yippie-skippie across our East Tennessee hill top, I am stunned by how fulfilling and rich my quiet life is.  

Our whole farming adventure is so plain.  Hands-on and earthy.  So very simple.  We feed the cows and chickens.  Muck the stalls.  Water and weed the garden.  Add fresh well-water to the bass pond if it hasn’t rained in a few days.   Check the apple orchard and grape vines for invading beetles or caterpillars.   Nothing truly noteworthy happens during our daily routine . . . except that all of it is so quietly miraculous.

Bird nests . . . with their tiny eggs . . . so perfectly tucked into odd nooks and crannies in the barn.
Sunshine streaming through open stall doors as daylight dawns over the eastern ridges each morning.
Sleepy calves nursing one last time before they snuggle beside their mothers on soft grass each evening.

There’s really nothing witty or sharp to Tweet about.
Nothing spectacular to display on a Pinterest board.
No great revelation to unveil in a book or preach from a pulpit.

Just simple, unembellished miracles.
The kind that leave your hands tired and your heart completely at rest.


Only a Miracle
When calves are born at Kirkhaven,
There isn’t much to see . . .
Just tiny, shiny, sleepy heads
With wibbly-wobby knees.

There’s no loud celebration,
No cheering revelry . . .
Just mama softly lowing
A lullaby for three.

One day it will be different . . .
On hillsides green and free . . .
With romping ‘cross the grassy brae . . .
And mooing ‘neath the trees . . .
And venturing in pasturelands . . .
And grazing peacefully . . .

But now there’s nothing newsworthy
To blog or tweet or see . . .
There’s just this newborn miracle,
With cow and God and me.

Yetta and her newborn calf . . . sweet little Patience . . .