Sad Update

Today's blog post was going to be on something altogether different.  However, today there is a Miracle-shaped hole in my heart.  Yesterday, we lost little Miracle.  For regular readers, you know she was the kid that we brought back from the brink when she suffered from hypothermia just after her birth.  After she was resuscitated, her mother didn't recognize her and so wouldn't feed her.  I spent the last month and a half bottle feeding her three to four times a day - first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  We even had to work our schedules around her feedings.  She was aggravating at times, for a long time not recognizing her bottle, choosing to nuzzle against my leg, the wall, a bale of hay, anything, rather than make the connection between the bottle I was holding and the food that it put in her tummy.  But I felt for her.  Does and kids have a strong bond and the kids snuggle with their mothers at nap time and night time.  Miracle didn't have that.  So whenever she performed her bizarre habit of pressing her head against my leg rather than drink her milk, I indulged her for a few moments saying she was getting some "mama" time in.  Last time I bottle fed her she seemed more interested in nuzzling rather than eating.  So I held her head between my palms and stroked the sides of her face.  She closed her eyes and soaked up the attention.

Yesterday afternoon Bill saw a white shape in a distant area of the pasture.  At first we thought it was the guard dog Joey, then we thought it might be a goat napping, or even one of the expectant does giving birth.  However, when I got to the barn to see who Bill had brought up, I immediately knew something was wrong, and when I saw the face, I knew is was my Miracle.  We don't know what happened to her.  She seemed perfectly healthy, with not a scratch on her.  

Here's a photo of her doing what she most enjoyed doing (I wish I had a better, newer photo of her):

R.I.P. little Miracle.