Our neighbors decided to become citizen farmers.  Lucky us.

Don't get me wrong.  My best friend in high school grew up on a farm and I've always respected their work ethic and the care they give their animals.

But lately, three of my neighbors have decided (for various reasons) to become citizen farmers.  The one has about 8 acres of land and he's been raising heifers for sale for butchering.  I find them rather funny because they look down the hill at us when we are in our yard and watch us or they bellow when they are tired/bored/lonely/hungry just like babies. 

Another neighbor has decided to raise free range chickens.  The rooster has no clue of what sunrise is and crows at all hours of the day and night. 

And the third neighbor has decided that they need goats, chickens and a donkey.  The goats bleat, the chickens crow and cluck and the donkey?  Well the donkey has a lot of opinions that he/she expresses both day and night.

I guess in my mind I had always equated donkeys and mules as being the same size, but either donkeys are a lot shorter than I realized or this one is a runt. No  matter the physical size, this creature has a set of lungs on it that are exercised day and night.  We are about a quarter mile from this little bugger but when it gets going, I'd swear it was in the room with me.

Of all the creatures, the donkey by far makes the most noise of them all.  He's not mistreated, is well fed, has sufficient room to run, is pampered and friendly, but sure has a lot to say.

He kind of reminds me of some people.  Nothing really to add to the conversation or to complain about, but always right there with an opinion.

Sadly, sometimes that person is me........

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.duke.edu/web/nicholas/bio217/ekc7/white_tailed_deer1.jpg

Are white tailed deer suicidal?

The numbers of deer killed on the roadways and dying later off road are staggering.

It always amazes me how many times they will look right at an oncoming car and then leap right in front of that car.

Daytime or nighttime, it makes no difference.

At our house, we have hit a ridiculous number of them.

Tonight we added to that number by one.

Now, where did I put that body shop number again?......

 

As a lay speaker, sometimes you walk into interesting situations.  Sometimes they turn out funny.  This is one of them.

One of the smaller churches in our area called me to speak this morning.  As I was moving along with (what I thought was) an interesting and enlightening sermon, a four year old in the congregation, who was using the pew to hold his coloring book, looked up at his mom and asked, "Is she done yet?".

Everyone chuckled and so did I.

Hey, sometimes you just need to be kept humble.  :>)