why do I bother?

I love living in Casa Chaos, but yesterday I had that impending feeling of why do I bother, as it was a long, emotional day. Death has become part of our lives, and although we shouldn't all be so flippant about it, we appear to have become that way. When I begun this journey, I had romantic ideas of everything being done the right way, animals would be born, looked after by their mothers, and thrive.

Another duckling was attacked yesterday, this time we knew what it was as the stupid creature wandered into the dog pen, needless to say it came off worse. How does any animal think that taking a stroll past a creature that is far bigger than it would be safe. Billy watched as his baby was attacked, and how it survived I will never know.

What I do know is that the little thing survived for a few more hours, and died in the warm and dry, which is horrible, but the only thing we could do for it was make it comfortable. Putting animals out of their misery is something I simply cannot do, which makes me think am I indeed "playing farm" as my father once said.

I begun to doubt my abilities, and thought is it all worth it, as I hate feeling the joy as these animals are born,and then the despair as they die in front of me. Even the children have a strange attitude to death, as they consider any time that these animals are alive to be a miracle. Am I turning my children into uncaring human beings, or realists.

Someone questioned my ability to keep animals yesterday, and asked why the ducks were not caged until they were older. This is a good point, but surely what life is it to be in a cage, I am no expert, and have never claimed to be, so maybe I am wrong. As I turn the page to another day, a fence has gone up to keep the ducks around the pond. Too late to save two of them, but hopefully in time for the remaining two to flourish.