I asked Mr. FixIt on Saturday night if he’d like to go out to the farm with me yesterday to check things out. I like to get out there several times a month to make sure everything is ok and to pick up the mail. And, I like to just sit for a bit and breathe in a bit of the peace that place gives me. 

It was a beautiful day to go for a drive. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was chilly…in the 30’s…but a perfect day to go to my happy place. Especially after the week we’ve had. There was quite a bit of mail…the Livestock Market Quarterly and the flyer that tells you what farms are open and what they are selling. There was the usual advertisements, a couple bills, and the new phone book. Typical fare.

Everything looked good. I checked all the rooms, windows, and doors. There were four new messages. One was telling my late aunt she was eligible for a Covid vaccine on Tuesday. A couple hung up. And one was a man named John. He said we didn’t know him, but he was calling to give us the Good Word and share a couple of Bible verses. I didn’t think to write them down. I should have.

While I was wandering around the house, Mr. FixIt was checking up around the barn. He called me out to look at something. The ground between the barn and a drain pipe that goes across is very soft and always wet. It never gets sun and the only thing that really grows in that soil is a luxurious ground cover that’s about two to three inches thick. It sits like a dense carpet on top of the wet earth below and easily peels away like the skin that forms on pudding. 

I walked up to where Mr. FixIt stood, staring at the ground. 

“What do you suppose did this?” he asked.

I wandered around, looking at several places where the ground cover was disturbed. At first, I though perhaps coyotes had been digging for moles or voles in the soft earth. But I quickly ruled that out when I could find no foot prints. I studied the claylike soil that was exposed. There were two large cuts, with two smaller cuts within each. The smaller spots nearby were punctures straight down in the loamy material.

Eureka! What we had here was a fairly large deer came running down through the area between the barn and the house, put on the brakes for some reason, and skidded through the slippery clay and ground cover…trying desperately to stop. My guess is, he lost his footing and danced around a bit till he got his bearings before he continued on. I would have loved to have been there to see that!

One our way back home, we came around a curve only to be greeted with a pickup truck halfway in our lane. Mr. FixIt yelled. I might have said a bad word. I had no place to go but over the bank into the creek, but fortunately the guy swerved back into his lane and I moved back into mine. Our hearts were in our throats for a while, let me tell you. I thanked Jesus for getting us through that.

These twisty turny roads of West Virginia can be dangerous and I will definitely breathe better when we are able to live a little closer to town. It will still be a bit before we can do that, but in the meantime, I keep my cross hanging in my truck and pray God keeps us safe.

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“Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear. I am your God. I will make you strong, as I protect you with my arm and give you victories.”

Isaiah 41:10 CEV