Spring babes

So proud of Molly---she chose to continue her Berkshire Farm Center for Youth internship for the spring semester.  Bravo, Molly!  She was rewarded yesterday with a bounty of spring babies on the farm. It just goes to show that so many of the most meaningful experiences of the college years aren't always in the classroom.  She was greeted by a box full of cheeping newly hatched chicks, and it just got better from there. 

There were newborn farm animals everywhere.  She helped with a lamb born that day who was rejected by its mother.  They bottle fed it and tried to get it walking.  She also helped build a greenhouse.  Piglets due next week!


Back in our yard there've been some new appearances.  A duck couple has been waddling around out back, presumably starting a family somewhere in the marsh.  I've spotted several wild cats roaming around these past few weeks.  One was trying to hunt down the ducks.  Another is an absolutely beautiful cream colored one that seems to like to sit in the sun on our deck.  I remember him from last fall, but when he disappeared over the winter I assumed the worst.  But he's back.  How can cats survive outside during the long New England winter?  It boggles the mind. 

Anyway, before I could get too attached to this cat I saw that he was using our deck as a convenient hunting post.  What was he hunting?  The adorable chipmunks I've been having so much fun watching pop in and out of the chinks in our stone wall.  I saw the cat crouched motionless at the top of the stairs and then I spotted the tiny chipmunk happily munching an acorn down below.  I struggled with myself and almost rapped on the kitchen window to warn the chipmonk, but it didn't feel right.  The cat has had a long hard winter too.  I turned away.

He must have missed him, because when I checked back a little later, the cat was crouched on a lower step, waiting for another appearance.  Frankly, I just don't like that our deck is an accomplice to all this.