"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority ... the Constitution was made to guard against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Noah Webster


"There is no worse tyranny than forcing a man to pay for what he does not want just because you think it would be good for him."
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Friday, February 11, 2011

I'm Kidding?

In came the farm hands with a newborn kid goat, that they would have counted as dead except for the fact that it kept gasping every few seconds for air.  It was cold. The farm hands acted as if they just needed the final word to bury the poor thing.  The owner of the farm told them to go get some milk and let's see what we could do.

It didn't look good.  The heartbeat was faint and somewhere around sixty per minute. Normal for a full grown man. Near death for a mammal of three pounds. It looked comatose.  The body felt cold to the touch in a room that was 50 degrees.  I held this little kid next to the propane room heater and kept massaging it and praying that God would keep him alive.  I had to gently massage his throat to get him to swallow small amounts of milk.


There were other things that had to be done and it seemed like an exercise in futility to try to work to keep this little kid alive.  But he kept fighting.  He had a gaping wound on his rear leg more than a half of an inch.  One of the workers thought it might be because large rats that he'd seen might have attacked the kid early  on.

I managed to get home just as the sun was disappearing behind the mountains, ready to celebrate a special Shabbat with our new little friend.

I will post more on this in the morning.

UPDATE:  Unfortunately, little Chestnut got weaker through the night and would not take the milk that I had brought from the farm.  Twyla kept vigil from about 03:00.  We had him on a heating pad and did all we could, but it just wasn't meant to be.  He died shortly after 05:00.  Life is a fragile thing.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you the informative and learned commentary.

    Yours is a daily must read for me.

    IN the future would be interested in your perspective on marriage. Is currently being discussed at Daphne's.

    R.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for the kind words.

    I must ask; do you mean marriage in general? Do you have some specific questions? Do you want me to simply comment on the discussion at Daphne's?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The discussion at Jaded Haven is finished.
    Your insight would have been useful.

    Marriage in general would suffice.
    I know God would not approve of some modern-day attitudes toward marriage. How is that message delivered to worldly, lukewarm believers ?

    Thanks
    R.

    ReplyDelete

Please don't make me disable comments because you couldn't maintain decorum and civil discourse. You can disagree all you want to, just don't get nasty.