Goodness and Mercy

Yesterday morning in Morning Worship, we sang the hymn, "Surely Goodness and Mercy."  It is such a happy, catchy, fun song to sing.  The hymn is based off of the Scripture Psalm 23:6 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

I remarked that Goodness and Mercy would be great names to name sheep or goat twins!  Wouldn't that be the perfect names?  Just so happens, Mathilda is very pregnant with her first kids.  This morning at sunrise we went to the barn for our daily chores.  I put together all the feed and then I began to milk Clarabelle, the cow, as Tricia was feeding the chickens, opening nesting boxes and getting the goats in their places.  She said, "Mathilda is in labor!"

She updated me that Mathilda had feet poking out of her.  As she brought her into the barn and separated her in the stall, I could immediately tell that there were some problems.  Legs were protruding, for sure, but from the feet, you could tell that it was a breech birth.  Labor was not progressing and to make a long story short, Tricia timed Mathilda's contractions with pulling and was able to deliver the kid.

It was a female, but unfortunately, it was dead.  But, Mathilda wasn't done.  There was another kid coming.  Her labor was not progressing and Tricia had to assist with this delivery as well.  This was a male, and he was dead, too.  A very sad morning, to be sure.

The female, on the right, below, looked just like Mathilda.  The male, on the left, below, was spotted.

We are watching Mathilda closely after this ordeal.  She is very swollen from the stalled labor and delivery.  We were hoping to be able to be able to name these twins, Goodness and Mercy, and have them follow us all the days of our lives, but we'll save those names for later.  We'll have more twins come along in the future!