Thankful Thursday: Sleep

There’s an old saying that “you don’t miss something ‘til it’s gone”. …and it truly applies to sleep. 

Everybody sleeps, and we don’t take time to appreciate the fact that sleep is a blessing as well as a necessity. As a matter of fact, we don’t think bout sleep at all.  We take it for granted that at the end of the day we can lie down and close our eyes. Sleep seems so overrated.  If I didn’t need sleep, just imagine how much more I could get done!

But, at the end of every lambing season, after two+ weeks of near total sleep deprivation, my appreciation of sleep, uninterrupted and in a comfortable bed, has been renewed.  An hour or two, in a chair or the floor by the woodstove simply doesn’t have the restorative powers of real SLEEP. Normal human brain function is dependent upon regular sleep.  …and my personal shortage became obvious on more than one occasion.

My nocturnal trips to the barn are necessary even if they are uneventful.  Without physically being with the sheep, there is no way to know if there is an emergency.  For instance, if I hadn’t been there to help the old ewe with the big lambs the other night, in all likelihood we would have lost the ewe and the lambs. A loss we could ill afford.

Now that the lambs are all on the ground, and the bottle lamb has “graduated” to just four feedings a day, I can once more return to my regular trips to the “land of Nod”.

To say that today I am thankful for sleep might sound a little silly. But, my lack of regular sleep made me appreciative of any and all sorts of sleep. Yes, I am thankful for catnaps, nodding off, afternoon siestas and catching 40 winks…no matter what you call it…

Sleep is a wonderful thing. 

                        ‘night!