It’s a Wonder-full Life

One of the best things about living on a farm in the country is how you can be hustling through chores, intent on finishing before dark, and Mother Nature pulls a stunt that reminds you to stop and appreciate the serendipity of it all. Things like seeing three young does bounding into the woods from the north pasture as you round the corner on the 4-wheeler or seeing the same mama turkey and her poults over and over during the summer, noticing the poults have grown with the passing days. Most of the time, this stuff happens so fast, there’s no time or equipment to snap a picture. The only proof of the event is the one that remains as a marvelous memory long after wonderment of the moment has elapsed.

Tonight was such a night. I was hurrying to finish up filling water troughs before dinner. It was dusk rapidly descending into dark when I drove up to the ewe pen to make sure the water line was filling the trough and not just irrigating the ground next to it. I hopped off the 4-wheeler  and went to grab the line when a motion above and to my right caught my attention.

This wasn't *my* owl. The 3 pics I snapped with my cellie were all too dark to see the beautiful bird (and this pic was the only one I could find in the public domain)

As I looked up, I saw a good-sized barred owl fly a short distance away into the ewe pen. It perched there for a while, and when I approached to try a take a picture, it flew onto the limb of a small persimmon tree. I had a few minutes to watch it until it flew off towards the creek. What a treat! Barred owls have a unique call that sounds like “who cooks for you?” Around here, you can hear them often at night, but you don’t see them very often.

Just another reminder that while the farm life is a wonderful life, it’s also a life full of wonder, if only we take a few minutes to soak it all in.