The Byrne Diaspora

Mickey in the mix

 
Don III sent this picture of the newly born Bear Creek boy-lamb!--with Nicole's report that the mother, Ulani, was nonplussed, just "ho-hum, ho-hum, something hanging out my bum, and then, thirty minutes later, little Mickey Finn drops out onto the hay."  Don Jr. wrote with more details: Ulani is about a year old herself; don't know if I could have handled a birth at that age (or any age, for that matter). She seemed to know about what to do, though Mickey had a hard time sometimes getting attached to the teat. He butts at it to get her attention, and she hunkers down. She licked him off and on until he was clean--he came out wet and had little bits of hay all over him. She ate the hay. The other sheep, Shamrock and the father Uwain, showed little to no interest, but Ringo, the dog, thinks Mickey is a toy and keeps batting him around with a huge paw. Bailey, the other dog, potential companion for Ringo, was only interested in eating the afterbirth, which I eventually rolled in straw and removed...Mickey is all legs, looks like he's walking on stilts. Well! Welcome to the world, Little Ram, and all things that spring up in spring!

Timeless talofa

Crossing the International Date Line, Monica lived the day of April 7 twice in a row!--and is now in our past instead of our future.  So yesterday she went to Easter mass in Lalomanu, which consists, she wrote, of "ocean, stars, moon, sun, sand...that's pretty much all there is."  Meanwhile I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, where the sky is almost as blue.  Today a priest took bread for blessing in his hands and said, "Most Holy One, accept that of which, by the nature of this planet, we ourselves are made."  Then we the bread ate the body...or was it the other way around?  Did the ocean eat the sand or did the sand eat the ocean?  All that "billion-year-old carbon," all that dying and rising--it's hard to keep track!  Talofa (hello!) & Happy Easter.