Spilled Milk, A Fragile Life, and the Call to Stewardship
🥛 Spilled Milk in the Morning
The day didn’t start with tragedy, or beauty, or anything remarkable. It started with a simple task — one I do nearly every morning.
After milking, I carried a fresh half-gallon of milk to the propane fridge. It was in a glass jar, as always. I opened the door and began to tuck it inside, but as it touched another jar already on the shelf, the glass broke. Just a quiet tap between jars — that’s all it took. A soft sound, a sharp crack, and in an instant, I stood in the middle of a mess. Milk ran down the fridge shelves, pooled across the floor, and slipped into all the places you don’t want milk to go.
I’m not one to cry over spilt milk — truly, I’m not — but I wasn’t exactly singing songs of joy in that moment, either. I retrieved my mop bucket, then a rag, and by the time I was down on my knees with warm soapy water, scrubbing the floor and then my kitchen wash pan of clean soapy water wiping the inside of the fridge, moving every item off the shelves and wiping them, I had to smile. Not because I enjoyed the work, but because only the day before, I had thought to myself, “I really need to clean out that fridge.”
🧽 Lessons in Life’s Messes
Isn’t that how life is?
Sometimes the Lord whispers. Other times, He tips the milk.
There are moments on this homestead when I’m reminded just how much God uses the ordinary to reveal the eternal. He teaches us through the things that spill and break — not just the milk, but the plans, the rhythms, the things we thought we had under control. And when He allows a mess, it’s often because something needs cleaned beneath the surface. We don’t always get to choose the lesson, but we can choose whether or not we listen.
🐣 A Baby Chick and a Child’s Prayer
That wouldn’t be the only lesson of the day.
Later that morning, I found one of our Silkie chicks — week or so old — lying limp in the electric free brooder box. Hours before, it had been chirping and toddling along with the others. But now, it was quiet. Eyes open, barely moving, soft little feet curled beneath him.
He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t gone. But he was slipping.
Besides laying there he had pooped smeared on his backside, a clear sign of “pasting”; or in people terms, he was blocked. I cleaned his little backside for the obvious reasons, but this also helps to stimulate the digestive to pass the “paste”…….mission accomplished. I tucked him in a warm rag, dipping his beak every few minutes in homemade “save a chick” electrolyte: 1 cup warm water + tiny pinch of baking soda, tiny pinch of salt, and 1 tsp honey) and sat with him, hopeful but aware.
He was just too far gone.
💛 While It’s Alive, It Matters
I know — some would say, “It’s just a chick.” And yes, there are seasons when we raise animals for meat so we are careful how attached to our livestock we get. We know what it means to value purpose, and we understand that not every animal is a pet. But we also value life, and here’s what we teach our children, and what I still remind myself when something small and fragile is fading in my hands:
While it’s alive, it matters. We are their shepherds, their caregivers while they are here.
That tiny creature was knit together by the same God who knit you and me. Its purpose may not be eternal, but it is here now, and so we do what we can — within our power — to care for it. That “within our power” looks different for every family. Sometimes it’s vet care. Sometimes it’s warmth and prayer and a child holding it gently for hours, as Zeb did, whispering soft things and stroking its downy feathers, offering the electrolyte mixture to it on the tip of his finger. Sometimes it’s a young boy like Simmie asking the family to come together to pray for this fragile life, offering the purest kind of prayer — one unfiltered by theology or outcome. A child praying for a chick with all the faith in the world out of pureness.
🙏 When Prayers Aren’t Answered the Way We Hoped
And then, sometimes, that prayer doesn’t get answered the way we hoped.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t heard.
It means we are being called to trust — not the kind of trust that comes when everything turns out the way we want, but the kind that stays even when it doesn’t. Faith that isn’t shaken when healing doesn’t come. The kind that clings to God more tightly in sorrow than in triumph. Because real faith isn’t proven in what we receive. It is revealed in how we respond when the answer is no.
🐐 The Bleeding Ear and the Call to Steward
And the day still wasn’t done teaching.
Later that morning, during chores, we found one of our yearling does — a long-eared thing with Alpine in her bones — with a swollen pocket of fluid in her ear, about the size of a grown man’s pinky. At first glance, we suspected an abscess. We’ve seen our fair share of those over the years, and like most homesteaders, we’ve learned when to lance and when to wait. Based on what we saw, we made the call to lance it.
But what came out wasn’t pus — it was clear fluid and blood.
It turned out not to be an abscess at all, but an aural hematoma: a pooling of blood between the skin and cartilage of the ear, caused by trauma — often from shaking, flopping, or biting. We’ve seen this kind of thing in barn cats before, but never in a goat. From the outside, though, the swelling mimicked an abscess perfectly.
And this, too, is part of homesteading: learning to make judgment calls based on what you know, what you’ve seen before, and what’s within your means — just like much of medicine. Sometimes the call is right. Sometimes it’s not. But that doesn’t mean it was careless or without merit. It means we’re doing our best with the experience we’ve gained and the resources we have.
In this case, lancing probably helped relieve the pressure, and for that we’re grateful. But now the care shifts. It will fill again with blood as it has already but repeated draining won’t heal it — so instead, we’ll take a gentler route. We plan to apply a soft neck sleeve to help keep her from shaking her ears, allowing the body time to reabsorb the blood naturally. We’ll monitor it closely, pray over it, and give her the attention she needs to heal and she will be fine.
We suspect one of the other does bit her ear — she’s done it before, especially with the longer-eared girls. We cleaned the area, applied Blue-Kote to ward off flies, and will keep watch for any signs of infection. We’ll wrap it if needed. Separate her if we must. Because this is what stewardship looks like.
And Scripture doesn’t suggest we be good stewards — it commands it.
📖 What the Bible Says About Livestock
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” — Proverbs 27:23
This isn’t just a nice proverb about livestock. It’s a blueprint for how to live — to pay attention, to tend, to notice what’s wrong before it becomes worse. And this is one reason we raise our own animals. Because we’ve watched a culture move from husbandry — the gentle tending of life — to agribusiness, and in that shift, something sacred has been lost.
You can raise animals for food and still honor their lives.
You can tend a garden for harvest and still marvel at the seed.
You can milk a goat, gather eggs, hatch chicks — and still see the fingerprints of the Creator in every breath they take.
When we forget this, when we raise animals without heart or harvest food without gratitude, we lose something of God’s image in the work. And in doing so, we dishonor Him.
🐓 When a Child Doesn’t Know a Chicken
I remember years ago, back on our first homestead — a three-acre plot with an old farmhouse — we hosted a church picnic. We had just left a sweet little bungalow in town and had jumped headfirst into this life: goats, chickens, gardens, and dirt under our fingernails.
The pastor’s son came, about 12 or 13 years of age, and wandered out near the chicken coop. He looked at the hens, eyes wide, and asked in almost a fearful tone, “What are those?”
We thought he was joking. But found out he wasn’t.
How could a boy — even one raised in town — not know what a chicken looked like? Had he never read Chicken Little? Never watched a cartoon or seen a picture book? But he wasn’t joking. He’d never seen a real chicken before.
And in that moment, something clicked for me.
🌾 The Great Disconnect
It was my first taste of the great disconnect — the one between people and their food, between children and creation, between hands and harvest. That boy was the product of a system that had separated him entirely from the source of his nourishment. And that moment planted a seed in me — a seed of quiet conviction to live differently.
To teach differently.
To bring up our children not just to know their food, but to understand its value. To see the hand of God in every feather and hoof and heartbeat.
🌅 Final Thoughts on a Hard Homestead Day
Not every day here ends with a sense of peace. Some days end with broken glass, spilled milk, dead chicks, and wounded goats. But even on those days, there are lessons.
Because sometimes the Lord teaches us through the milk that spills.
Sometimes He teaches us through the life that slips away in our hands.
Sometimes He teaches us through the wounded that we must tend and protect.
And every time, the invitation is the same:
Be faithful in the small things.
Know the state of your flocks.
And trust, even when the outcome doesn’t look like a miracle.
Because sometimes trust itself is the miracle.
Liyah