Our second lamb is doing better, I feel confident he will pull through. It took him five or six hours to recover from a very hard birth and a distracted and weakened mother, but mother have settled down, we were fortunate, we knew what to do and we had the tools on hand to do it. I think the vitamins and booster shots saved his life.

Maria was shaken by the experience – we saw some real life today – but in a positive, even healing way.

This is why we are here, this is why we are not living in a split-level somewhere settling in to watch our favorite TV show. There is nothing wrong with that, we each make our own choices, but this is why we both are here, to live a real life in the very real world. Nature is the greatest teacher of all, we sat with a small thing, the birth of a lamb, but it speaks to big things – life, choices, decisions, death, risk and the natural world. I feel a great responsibility when it comes to animals, the decisions we make or fail to make can cost a life, or two.

It felt like we were on that fault line today. The world does not care much of a ewe or a lamb lives or dies, there is no such thing as a no-kill farm, on the scale of things it does not matter. In our universe it is about our own strength our own commitment to living in the world in a certain way, in a responsible and compassionate way, in a way that is free and creative.

I felt today was a big day for us, for us as a couple. I knew lambing would be important. As Maria prepared to set out for Gee’s Bend Alabama, she has triumphed over a very powerful experience, and I have put the things I have learned living here to good use. I am relived our second lamb – as yet unnamed – is doing better, I am confident he will be okay.

We were grateful all day to be in the company of new and loving friends. They were all around us. New for both of us.

Today was a small day in the scheme of things, a good day for me and for Maria.