Mother Nature's Curve Balls

I didn't need any more jobs to do today.

I certainly didn't need to be burying one of our young chickens.....and I don't have the emotional strength today to explain to my 4.5-year-old and 3-year-old daughters why our blind chick chick Tafiti died at some point early this morning.

Sure, if I had all the time in the world, Tafiti would have become a nappy wearing house pet, hand-fed all her meals and water requirements. But our life doesn't work that way, we have too much cleaning to do as it is. But how do you explain to kids that blind animals rarely survive?

Growing up in primary school my closest friend was vision impaired, and he managed just fine-in fact, he managed better than a lot of the other kids, and his other senses were well and truly heightened. This was also the case for Tafiti, who would always come running straight to me when I called her name, but she also always banged in to the walls of the chicken run, and would walk straight into the meanest chicken in the run.

So now, Tafiti will be one of the chickens that we thank for our delicious lemons and limes. We will miss her, but once again, our farm has taught us a life lesson.

Update-I wasn't sure how I felt about taking a photo of me burying a chicken, but I'm glad I did, because it helped my daughters say goodbye to her.