A sad day at the farm

Yesterday I helped my friend roll her dead foal onto a sheet and carry it to a hole in the ground. The foal had been healthy, but complications with the placenta had caused her to drown in her own amniotic fluid. The dam is only mildly upset, and she is back amongst the other mares.
A man with a backhoe came and dug the hole. He did this chore with extreme goodness, and waited quietly as we heaved the baby into her grave, cried some, and then threw the spring’s last trillium flowers in after. He wouldn’t accept any payment. I wondered how many horses he had helped bury. He looked on us so gently. As he carefully covered the hole, I watched my friend stand there and see the last year of her life buried in the earth.
When things get difficult, as they do here on the farm—and indeed anywhere nature is close at hand—she steels herself and stands right in it.
I admire this about her maybe more than anything. She’d look the devil in the eye and ask him what he’s got. One time I watched her step in front of two charging horses and wave her arms. They each picked a side and ran the other way. This woman is steel, I tell you.
I saw her heart breaking as the backhoe leveled out the dirt.
Later we cleaned the birthing pen and burned sage in the barn and did chores.

There is a certain amount of doing what you have to do when you live with animals. Death is part of it. I remember, vividly, Loki’s last exhalation. I don’t reckon I will easily forget what it felt like to move the heavy, stiff, leggy foal over, either. I am glad I could be on the farm for this, heartbreak and all.