I spent part of my Mother's Day watering a puddle. We had just moved the sheep to a fresh paddock and while I wrapped up that task, the littlest farmer (who is growing ever less little) was exploring part of the field where we store hay bales for winter.

This time of year, the bales are gone but the ruts left behind by the tractor are full of soft, slowly drying mud. It’s fun to look there for animal tracks and he was calling out his finds to me as I finished setting fence corners.

“Tiny birds… bigger birds… deer… coyote or dog… more birds…”

He then went quiet, and I walked over to find him sitting down on the edge of a large rut that still held water and hundreds of little black tadpoles. Some toads had found the ruts on their way to the pond just beyond, and decided the temporary puddles would do nicely for their eggs. He looked up and asked, “Do you think they’ll have enough time?”

I believe humans may be the only species to break time into parts. Toad mothers have no concept of the future and like most creatures, go through life perpetually in the moment. They can’t anticipate that puddles may dry up before their tadpoles can grow lungs and legs to hop away.

Instead of worried toad mothers, the tadpoles had a human child asking “what if” on their behalf. We watched them wiggle swim and talked about how the over production of offspring is a strategy some species use -- for a few to make it they start with hundreds or thousands.

Meanwhile, the ones that don’t make it become part of the food or nutrient cycle. Everything must eat at some point and the Earth is always recycling her building blocks. Life and death can be very matter of fact when we strip away the human tendency to apply our feelings to natural systems.

I know this and I found myself teaching my child this and yet… I also found myself hauling a five-gallon bucket of water across a field to refresh a puddle for tadpoles. All because my heart saw the helplessness in my son’s eyes and wanted to replace it with hope.

I don’t know if those tadpoles will survive. Surely not all will. We may even maintain their puddle only for some birds or a raccoon to come along and eliminate them in all one lucky feast.

And isn’t that a paradox of what it means to be human? We want to help but we aren’t actually in control. When we do try to help, we might make things worse. But are things worse? Depends on who you’re rooting for.

This comes up in farming all the time. I spend my days doing my very best to care for living things. Some will thrive, some will die despite my efforts. And some I will choose to kill in order to feed myself and others.

How do I choose? Who am I rooting for? Why do I even bother to care and why would I ever, ever stop? Life is complex. It is also simple. I am learning to live inside both those truths.

Love, Kelly

P.S. Happy belated Mother’s Day to all those who mother and sending hugs to anyone walking this Earth without a mother, for whatever reason that may be.