It's All About the Sweet Newness

I don't know of anything that speaks spring and newness than baby animals. On Good Friday, after having lunch with my Dad and spending some time over at his place, we jumped in the van and headed out to the countryside to visit our friends who live on a Hutterite colony. We weren't there long before the girls had to make the walk to the barn to visit these fluffy little fellows.

For whatever reason, our arrival caused them to stampede. Now if you've never seen this many ducklings stampeding in a limited area you have not lived. It is hilarious. Whatever little thing sets them off and they are running. In a group, as if they were one. And they always go counter clockwise. Then they settle down for a minute and you can see about a half dozen little duffers that somehow couldn't get their webbed feet going fast enough and ended up on their backs with their legs flapping the air, trying to get themselves upright. My girls would feel sorry for them, and want to jump into the pen to help upright them, but by the time they got over the little wood barrier, the little upturned ones would have struggled and fought and uprighted themselves and my girls quick movements would cause another round of stampeding, which caused another handful of fluff ball with feet flapping in the air, which caused the girls hearts to melt, which caused their movement, which caused... well you get the idea. F.u.n.n.y.

And I know there is a spiritual lesson in there somewhere. Something about when we find ourselves bowled over by the circumstances of life or people in general running over the top of us and knocking us down so that we feel we are just flapping in the air trying to get upright, that it is in the struggle and learning of how to get upright again that we get strong. And how that sometimes no matter how fast or hard we flap and try to get up sometimes we just need someone to come alongside and help us up. And we need to let them do that. And something about following the crowd isn't always the best thing. Yeah there's some kind of life lesson like that in there.

Once the little fluff balls got a bit used to us in there, we could actually get in the pen with causing the running of the ducks. And if we were very slow in our movements, they started to trust us a bit.

And let us get a little closer.


Until finally:
Mission Accomplished.


Getting to hold a warm, furry, soft bundle in one's arms. How can one not be drawn to the sweetness and cuteness of new life of any kind.

To have them make sweet baby noises and chirps in your ear.

And feel their teeny hearbeats in your hands.

And their poop on your new shirt. Dang. But who can be mad at that cute fluff ball. The cute factor trumps the poopy factor any day in these city girls' eyes.