Part of living on farm is learning to accept the natural cycle of life and death. The life part is easy to embrace. It's little chicks hatching and lettuce sprouting up out of barely warmed earth. It's goat kids jumping and the mountains greening as we slide through another beautiful spring here at Pleasant Places.
But then there is death. And to live with the natural world with any kind of integrity, we must accept it as well. Yesterday, we had another hard lesson in this reality.
Molly, our dark bay rescue filly, came to us already bred, though we didn't know it until we had our vet check her. We knew it was a risky pregnancy. She was smallish, too young, and we didn't know what size horse she was bred to. Since we found out she was pregnant two months ago, we have tried to balance her feed to nourish her enough, but not enough to cause the foal to get too large. We tried to keep her off the fescue, which causes problems for pregnant mares. We bought expensive hay and supplements that other folks recommended. And despite our better judgement, we began to get excited about this foal.
Meanwhile, Molly won our hearts with her gentle willingness. She tried everything we asked her to do in her groundwork training. And every once in awhile, though she was still underweight everywhere but in her belly, we would catch a glimpse of her potential. And we chose to believe that one day she would be a beauty.
But it was not to be. Molly went into labor yesterday and could not expel the large foal. The Bible calls death the last enemy. Our vet and my daughter and I battled that enemy for hours trying everything possible to help her deliver, but in the end, sitting exhausted in the mud and manure and blood, we had to make the decision to put her down and end her pain. She was, as my vet said, "a valiant little horse" and she tried hard to give us that foal, just as she always tried to give us what we asked of her, but this time she just couldn't.

So this post is a tribute to Molly and her foal. Molly, we will miss you.

Happy Trails.