Bruised Toes and Bruised Hearts

There is nothing like shoveling animal excrement to help build close and tender family moments. The whole family went out to Hollow Creek Farm yesterday to help prepare for the Dec. 19 Open House Christmas party. A month of dog poop needed scooping (or at least it seemed like a month worth... with 30 dogs, it might have been just a few days....)Nonetheless, Nicole's house and yard were otherwise typically spotless. I don't know how she does it, when with only two dogs and one bird, my house is swirling in hair and feathers, lifted by our every passing breeze.

Arvo was assigned to raking out the pig and chicken area, and Asherel and I went to dog poop detail. While we gathered poop for two and a half hours, trying to sniff the fresh country air beyond the shovels we toted, countless dogs swirled around us. They all wanted us to pet them, though were polite about it. If we did pause to give one attention, he would then follow us anxiously nuzzling and begging for more. The little half eyed old pug wheezed noisily, and waddled over for her pat. The only one who didn't approach us was Spatula, whose story you can follow on hollowcreekfarm.org . HCF had nursed him back to health from a gunshot wound, and he still did not trust strangers. So he spent the entire 2 hours barking at us from a safe distance. The fact that he was so healthy again was a miracle in itself. Pea, the little black lab puppy was beside herself with the desire to be cuddled.
"You'll adopt her out quickly, won't you?" I queried.
"No," said Nicole, "She's black. She was going to be euthanized when we snagged her."
I don't know how Nicole doesn't weep every moment of every day in her work.

Finally as the last bit of poop was blessedly plopped in the giant receptacle where it will then be carted away to third world countries who don't have dog poop, Asherel and I got to go to our reward. I would get to work with Sadie the wild mustang, and Asherel would get to work with Bob, the evil pony (you can follow his escapades on the utube, Bob the Evil pony series.)

First we had to choose how to get over to our horses' pasture. Route number one entailed getting by the frisky filly Jamie, who is a lovely young horse, but a bit rambunctious. Route number two involved entering the rain- muddened pen of the cows who thought they were large dogs and all thousand pounds of them liked to come barreling into us. When the pasture was hard and solid, we could safely run for cover, but when the muck threatened to swallow us, we were stuck there like giant punching bags.

We chose the rambunctious filly route and made it safely to our wild and evil charges. While I was working with Sadie, I threw my coat over the fence separating the cows from us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sir Loin grab my coat. I sprinted to the fence and tugged it back before he absconded with it, making such a tremendous and sudden lunge that I almost ripped my toenail off on the too small inside edge of my boot. Struggling to not shriek in pain, and freak out the wild mustang, I smothered my urge to make hamburgers on the spot, and returned to Sadie. She won't let most people near her, but she has come to like me (or rather my pockets of treats) and let me get a halter nearly all the way over her nose, while I scratched her behind her quivering ears. It has taken me months to get that far, but I counted it a victory.

The next morning as I settled down to write, HCF sent me a video of a horse auction, where unwanted horses were led around and sold to what are known as "killer buyers", people who buy horses to resell them for profit to be slaughtered for human consumption. My throbbing black and blue toe had not made me cry. But the sight of those placid animals being quietly led to their slaughter, when with one hoof they could have killed their executioner made tears flow like blood from a wound.

It reminded me of another innocent, who had the power of all heaven at His disposal yet remained silent and meek as a lamb as He was led to His crucifixion.
At least His torture led to the salvation of a world. I knew of no redeeming value in the scene of those beautiful animals gently acquiescing to follow the rope attached to death.