Everyone loves snow until you live with animals.

Until your water buckets are frozen solid.

Until your chickens stop laying and you’re out there chipping ice off contraptions that worked fine yesterday.

Until your dog is having the time of his life while you’re quietly bracing for what the cold might take.

We brought Tilly and Toffee inside when the temperatures dropped too low. Everyone else was doing okay. Or so we thought.

Gina wasn’t ready.

No bag. Ligaments still there. We checked her over and over. She looked fine. She looked like she had time.

And then she didn’t.

Josh went out for our evening check and found that she had delivered — two babies. Both cold. Both not breathing.

He brought them inside and we spent the next hour doing everything we could. Warming them. Rubbing them. Refusing to accept what was already true. Holding onto hope longer than logic said we should.

It didn’t matter.

They didn’t make it.

I know this is “part of farming.”

I know people say you can’t save them all.

I know loss comes with this life.

But knowing something doesn’t make it hurt less when you’re standing there with two tiny bodies in your hands and nothing left to try.

This isn’t the kind of heartbreak that teaches a lesson.

It just hurts.

Gina is okay — eating, moving, breathing. We’re watching her closely. And I’m grateful for that, even while my chest feels cracked open.

This is the part no one posts about.

The part that doesn’t fit into a reel or a cozy homestead aesthetic.

The part where winter takes what it wants and leaves you standing there wondering what you missed.

Tonight, the snow isn’t pretty.

It isn’t peaceful.

It’s just cold.

And I hate this part of farming more than I ever thought I could.