With the good, comes the sad :(

What a fabulous experience for my boys to have had the chance to help a little calf orphaned by his mum. The little calf Buddy (or Lewis if you are Max.... poor calf may have had an identity crisis) was abandoned by its mum and my Mum and Dad decided to try and raise him by the bucket. The poor little thing didn't get to have his colostrum from his mum so he was always going to have an uphill battle to survive.

Sadly after a week of love, care and medicine, Buddy wasn't strong enough to survive.  He was just so little and frail - the photo of him below in the red jacket was actually in the dogs coat, which shows how tiny he was.  He fought hard but sadly he didn't make it.

I wasn't sure how the boys would handle the news but they have actually taken the news quite well and understand that life on the farm can sometimes be cruel.  Max came for a walk with me today and he was very mature about the outcome, and after discussing it for a few minutes, he just said 'Mum, I think we can stop talking about it now mum, it will only make us even sadder'.  So, another life lesson has been learned on the farm.

It is a difficult topic to make clear with the boys, as some farm animals are, for want of a better term, 'commodities' and others are like family members.  We have had a tough year on the farm with 2 family members going, Zoe the pony, and Molly the dog, and the boys have definitely understood the importance and sadness with those losses.  However, they know that the cows are not 'pets' and are not treated in the same way.  

We ensured the boys didn't see Buddy after he had died, and when questions of 'where is he buried' came up we were clear that they weren't to know.  It is one thing to know he's gone, quite another to stumble across it on your morning motorbike ride !  

I don't want them to be nonchalant or blasé about death, but knowing they can distinguish and cope with a loss is also comforting.  I am trying to avoid the TV news lately, as there is so much violence and death shown and described, that I really don't want the boys being inundated with that daily.  It often comes back to them at a later time and worries them about where we live and what we do.  

The sad story of the Phil Walsh's death (the Adelaide Crows coach) has been a hard thing to avoid on the news but we have told the boys the bare minimum so that they don't have to feel the tremendous sadness that we do when things like this happen.  I have no idea if it is the right approach in the long term but I don't want them having to think of 'death' on a regular basis as a child - I know I don't like it as an adult.

RIP 'Buddy' aka 'Lewis'

and 

'Phil Walsh'