Last year, I think it was, my Oldest Baby Girl sent me a surprise gift in the mail for Mother’s Day. It’s a dish towel, and the picture depicts a woman, a mother, I presume, wrestling an alligator.
I’ve never done that.
I’ve run across small alligators here and there while My Boy was fishing, but I’ve never felt inclined to wrestle one. Mostly, I jumped away from them and got myself out of their space.
But the words imprinted on the dish towel make me laugh–they say, “Once a day, do something that scares your family.”
I don’t always–I try to live a calm, peaceful, don’t bother anyone else kind of life.
Here at the farm, I’ve had a few encounters with snakes, some venomous and some not.
I’ve slipped and fallen up here.
I once walked ole Roscoe the Mule home, miles and miles on a public highway, while I was barefooted.
Just last week, I was cleaning a barn out, and while I did what I had to, I raised up and knocked my head on a shelf so hard I saw stars and got nauseous from pain.
But today, I did a thing that scared me. I knew when I got over there it might not be smart.
I did it anyway.
I pulled the UTV, our little side-by-side with the back that dumps, as close as I could up to the chicken yard. The yard is covered, so owls and hawks can’t swoop in and help themselves to a chicken dinner.
But broken limbs, branches, leaves, pecans, and even a chestnut or two had fallen in the middle of the tarp that serves to cover them, and it was weighed down and stretched too far.
I tried to rake the leaves off from ground level, but I’m just not tall enough.
But I thought, if I stand in the bed of the UTV and lean on the fence and reach out with the rake, I think I can clean it off.
It turns out you can, but you need to be very careful to keep your weight off the lever that dumps the bed.
Otherwise, theoretically, the bed might suddenly dump and leave you with no choice except to hold onto the fence and hope you don’t fall hard.
The chicken yard cover is now cleaned, and the UTV is swept out and parked again in the barn.
It makes me smile to think that this day, I did exactly what my dish towel said to do–I did a thing that might scare my family.
If I decide to tell them.
May you look back over your day today and find laughter…hold onto those moments of joy. Store them like treasures in your heart–because they are.
They are gifts.
Blessings,
Vickie
Photo credit – Vickie Woolard.
Story borrowed from Vickie’s Facebook page: 11.12.24