George and the Placenta

Fancy, the grey mare, gave birth to her colt yesterday. Instead of waiting for some murky dusk to slip out the baby, it happened in the afternoon, hot and heavy. Exciting as it was, we nearly forgot the wet sac that came with the baby. So while Archie tested out his new legs in the feild and his funny knees matched his funny eyes (one brown, one blue) something else was left behind of equal wonder and beauty.

Corinne, the barnhead, held back her excited dog from the fleshy placenta: gripping him by the collar and butting her hip and leg into his side to close him away.

"Easy, George!" She said. "Not for you!"

George is a good dog, some sort of labrodor breed. He has his own agenda. Sometimes I see him jumping into the horse water trough on hot days. Other times he wanders among people, not looking on either side until he finds Corinne. She is never far from him.

Corinne kept the placenta over ice, to show the kids that came through. We examined the skin, the hundreds of veins that covered it, better than any leaf. It was a fine bit of engineering; and I couldn't understand why something so complete and well thought out would pass right through the body. Wouldn't Fancy want to keep that? I touched it with my finger.

The week passed on and I imagined that George the good dog had eaten the placenta meal because he was wild and his own self and he would devour the placenta and it would nourish him. Instead, the smell from the top barn wasn't of horses and dirt and hay. It was the sickly stench of meat like the time I accidently left the thrown away chicken in the trash instead of taking it to the dumpster.