The Grass is Greener

This picture has little to do with my blog subject but it is so darn cute of my son, Steve and his granddaughter Alyssa. Alyssa is 14 months old and has had 3 open heart surgeries. Not so many years ago Alyssa may not have made it to 14 months old. But thanks to modern medicine her heart has been repaired and she is gaining weight and looking really good. But I also thank God for her health for he guided the hands of the surgeons. She hears better than they said she would and that is by the grace of our loving Father.

I like this picture a lot. Alyssa is flirting with the camera and Steve's face and eyes tell their own story.

I have heard it said all my life that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. If you have live stock you will know exactly where that phrase comes from. There has never been a farmer that hasn't encountered his livestock out of the pasture where they belong.

Michael you are going to love this blog. It is for you and Merry Christmas. Hope all is well in your part of the country.

I have my horses behind electric fence. The fence I have is safe for horses and it keeps them in pretty well. But we have large herds of deer and the fences get pulled down by deer jumping them and branches falling off of trees and landing on the fence. It is safe however and cheaper and easier than putting up woven wire fence. So that is what we have. We had a lot of woven wire fence at one time. We, of course, had to check it and cut trees off of it too. Unless the fence was just really down most of the cows stayed put and could be depended on to stay in their pasture. But usually there was one rogue cow. Sometimes it would be the bull because of his testosterone.

My dad often told of a bull they had that regularly went visiting. He would cross the river to get with another herd of cows. Dad told me about taking his shot gun and putting bird load in it and sending the bull back across the river. The bull seemed to have a pretty long memory of that unpleasant experience because he never crossed the river again.

We had a bull that did the same thing except it was across the fence into the neighbors pasture with his cows. The fence was never very good between this neighbor and us. They were absentee owners with other farms and they used their farm neighboring to us to run replacement heifers for their dairy. They didn't worry much about fence because the neighbors would fix it most of the time.

So Bill borrowed a page from Dad's book and took the shot gun and we went over to the neighbor's field and sent the bull home. It worked beautifully and he also had a long memory and didn't want to repeat the experience.

To built our herd and to have extra calves to sell, Bill and I bought baby calves from a cousin that had a dairy farm. He bred his heifers to beef bulls and he sold us the resulting calves. He also sold us his Holstein bull calves which we bottle fed and sold as steers when they got some weight on them. We happened to get a Holstein heifer from him once that we raised and turned out with our beef bull. She produced a big nice calf. She was a really good mother. It came time to wean the calves and hers was extra nice because of all the milk she produced. But in raising her calf, she really lost the weight. She was putting everything into her milk and it didn't leave much for her.

She wasn't a problem until we weaned her calf. Then she started finding her way out of the field we had her in. Suddenly the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Often I would look out the kitchen window and she would be in the garden or in the yard. That really got on my nerves. We would put her back into the pasture and fix fence. A couple of days later it would be the same thing with another part of the fence. She was not only getting out of the pasture, she was tearing down fence to do it.

So drawing on past experience, I loaded the shot gun one fall afternoon and walked out to where she was grazing. I put the gun against my shoulder and pulled the trigger. The gun gave a load report and to my utter amazement, the cow dropped like a lead balloon. She was dead. I looked at her and I looked at the shot gun. I could not believe what had just happened. I was totally beside myself.

Now Bill was down on the river pumping a gasoline barge and we were getting ready to go to the field to pick corn. The children had just gotten home from school. The boys were getting a snack and changing their clothes and here I stood looking down at a cow I had just shot.

I did the only thing I knew to do other than cry. I called my Daddy. He said he would be right down to the farm to help me. The boys got the tractor and put the lift on it. Dad got there and we picked her up and took her to the barn. We skinned her out and hung her to chill. Yes, I know how to skin a cow. (Move over Sarah. You aren't the only one with a skinning knife) My Daddy bless his heart helped me do all that and told Bill he could see no reason that cow should have died from the shot since none of the bird shot hit anywhere that should have killed her. He maintained she had a heart attach.

Dad went home and took Mary Beth with him. Mike, Steve and I went to the field to pick corn. We came in about dark and Bill had been home for a little while. He had been out for hours so he went to bed and went to sleep totally exhausted. Debbie told us what happened when her Daddy got home.

The conversation went something like this.. Bill ask where Momma and the boys were. She replied that they were in the field picking corn. Next he wanted to know where Mary Beth was. Debbie told him she went home with Granddaddy. He asked why Granddaddy was here. She told him that Granddaddy came to help skin the cow. Well that was a surprise to him of course. So naturally he wanted to know what cow. Debbie in all her honesty and 7 year old voice told him that it was the one Momma shot. That was news to him. That was the first he had heard of a cow being shot and skinned.

To my surprise when Bill got up the next morning he said nothing about the cow that was shot and skinned and chilling in the barn. Two weeks went by and nothing was said about the cow. I wasn't talking about cows and neither was he. About that time we were at my Dad's house and I asked Dad if it was about time to cut the beef up and put it into the freezer. Bill innocently ask what beef I was talking about like he had never heard anything about it.

It was an incident that has followed me through life. Bill and I had several good laughs over it and my daughter, Mary Beth will tell the story every time she gets a chance, right Michael.

She does embellish and leaves out some important facts but her story always gets a lot of laughs. And she even tells her patients at the hospital about it to entertain them while she is working with them.

So as the grass that was greener on the over side of the fence led to that cow ending up in our freezer well before the usefulness of her life was over so bad choices can lead to heart ache and heart break for us.

I was recently in Stanton Ky to be at church when a dear friend was baptized. Her husband had also rededicated his life to Christ. It was a glorious day for their family and friends. But while there rejoicing over the turn around in their lives I heard about 4 young people that had lost their lives due to overdoses of drug they were using illegally. Somehow the grass looked greener on the other side of the fence to them.

Although not all lives will end like those, can't we all relate to the grass looking greener over the fence. A class mate has a bigger house, drives a nicer car has children that are successful and outwardly looking like they are living a life we may have dreamed of. But what is their heart ache. What has broken their hearts.

A friend lives in a big beautiful house, has travelled the world and has friends in high places. But they haven't been able to have children. That is a heart break for them but to look over the fence it looks like they have it all.

Sheep, cows and horses do not lay down in green pastures unless they have everything they need. A cow especially will not lay down and chew her cud if she is not full and content. So if we follow Christ and rely on God to give us all we need, we do not have to envy the grass on the other side of the fence. In Christ, we have it all.

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May God bless and keep you in his loving and tender care.

Regards

Mary

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters

Psalms 23: 1-2

I must have been deep in thought. Bob snapped my picture when I didn't expect him to do it. Is that a horse magazine I was readig. Is there any other kind?


We had guests last week. Wendy is from Oregon and her son and daughter-in-law live in Indiana. They were really delightful people and by the time they left, I felt like I had known them all my life.

They had come to see the horses. That is itself makes for a good visit. It was cold then as it is tonight. We invited them in the warm house for coffee and some hot soup. There is nothing like sharing a meal with friends to make a day complete. I had made blueberry muffins and had coffee ready as well as a good pot of bean soup.



Of course the talk was mostly of horses and the horses we had just visited in the barn. It is a really good time when people come and admire one's horses. I was pleased to share pedigrees and accomplishments with them. Wendy was very knowledgeable on the breed and shared her stories of riding. It was a wonderful day.



But when it is all said and done we go back to the barn to feed the horses. The last two days have been terrible winter days. I look out the windows and see the rain falling and it is ice. I remember in January and early February of 2009 that the ice broke power lines and tree limbs and we were without electricity for nine days. So one just has to wonder if that will happen again.



Since then the power company has been here trimming trees back away from the power lines. So hopefully it is taken care of and we will be ok.



It is catch up time. There is a ton of paper work to do. Horses to register. Pictures to take. Papers to fill out and checks to write. It is time consumming but must be done. Soon it will be time once again to pull out all of the cancelled checks and receipts to file taxes. But for right now Christmas is just around the corner and pushing at the door.



Everyone ask the question, "Are you ready for Christmas." This year my daughter and granddaughter decided rather than spend money on each other and buy things none of us need, we would pitch in and buy gifts for soldiers that are overseas and away from home and family for Christmas. I think that was a good idea. I have so much that I really don't know where to put anything else. I have nicknack's that are stored away in boxes in the closet. I don't know what else I could possibly want or need.



But I have been Christmas shopping just the same. At church, we have a Christmas store. The members of the church take a shopping bag home. It has the age range of a boy or girl. We are to spend up to $25 for a child that age. The gifts are then placed in a large area and families can come and shop for their child. It is so much easier than trying to buy a gift for Sam or Sue age 12 or 8 etc. The parent gets to pick three gifts for their child. It was really a great idea that some one had to do it that way.



Our Bible study class has some men who come from prison for Bible study. One of them didn't get to put his children's names on an angle tree soon enough and ask for a little help for his youngsters. The class turned out generously for the family. I am very proud of what our class did for those children.



Our class is a kind generous group of men and women. Recently, we lost a member of our class. One of the members sent out emails to let us all know of his death. Soon Gloria had everyone organized to bring food for the family at the funeral home. Right after that, a member lost his mother. Once again Gloria went to work sending out emails and getting food brought for the family.



We get so wrapped up in what to buy for each other and decorating the house and preparing for a big meal that we can easily forget why we celebrate Christmas. Society has tried its best to take Christ out of Christmas. People get offended by someone saying "Merry Christmas" They have tried to get us to use "Happy Holidays". I am offended that anyone would try to take away my right to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.



One of the best celebrations I had this year for Christmas was to go to church with dear friends and see one of their own baptized and profess Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Do you know how much rejoicing there is in Heaven when one of the lost is saved. More than we can imagine. We certainly rejoiced over her new birth and her husband's re-dedication of his life to Jesus.






As I write this the dogs are all over the house sleeping. I think my house has surely gone to the dogs. I have been allowing Mike and Natalie's dogs to come in to my house until one of them gets home from work. It is so bitter cold outside and they are more used to staying inside. So Erica is asleep on the couch. I lost that battle and I now just put an old quilt on the couch to save it from dog hair. Tex is at the foot of the bed sleeping on a rug and Cassie is sleeping out in the sun room. It is one of those nights out that Steve will allow his dog to come into the house.






God has blessed me with a nice home. The furnace is running and seems to never cut off but it keeps the house warm and we are comfortable. I sometimes just take it all for granted. Warm place to live in the winter. Cool house in the summer. Warm clothes to dress in to go to the barn. Warm socks and shoes. We have a little heater in the feed room and when we go in the feed room is nice. We can go in to warm up a little from the cold barn. I get into my truck to drive to the barn. It is warm. God has blessed me so abundantly.






If I did not have any of those things in life, I would still be blessed because Jesus died on the cross to cover my sins. If I could do enough good works to get to heaven on my own, Jesus would not have had to die the terrible death he died. But I can not do enough good or be good enough. I am blessed because I have been saved by grace through the precious blood of Jesus Christ my Lord.





St Paul was content where ever he was because he had the assurance of his salvation. So I will be content with whatever God chooses to bless me with. Where ever I am.






God bless and keep you in his loving care. May you pause to reflect on what Christmas is really about.







Regards







Mary







By grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves, lest any man should boast.







Romans