Susan with a more gentle creature earlier this year in Wales.

By Susan Shanklin

You complain about winter and, bam, summer comes, and you start looking forward to fall and harvest. I tell you, we humans are never satisfied with whatever state (or season) we are in!

It’s strawberry season here at the Shanklin Ponderosa (aka 3.3) and, rain or shine, someone has to go out there and pick. Mmmm, I wonder which someone that is? But at least I don’t have to lie on the icky garage floor and fix the riding lawn mower. Oh, me not complaining per se, but we did get 4.3 inches of rain yesterday. I have not emptied that much rain out of the rain gauge, I think, ever.

I turn to look at the farmers’ fields around me and wonder if the new soybeans will survive, or if the young corn belonging to the other farmer with the lake in his field will make it.

When we give thanks for our daily bread, we, all around the world, should maybe reflect a silly second and think about where it came from?

Yes, I guess I am more aware of farmers, because we live in a rural area, but it does go back to everything we eat, drive, or do, you know. Someone has labored for that food or thing. It’s more than being thankful. It’s caring for the other guy before ourselves.

Perhaps, we all need a little humor in our lives and remember how it might have looked really bad, but God made a way for things to turn out OK.

A couple of weeks ago a neighbor gal, who also takes care of our animals when we are gone, called and asked if she could use our fenced-in pasture land to put her calf in for a couple of weeks because she had run out of hay. Seeing we no longer have our sheep, the grass was getting mighty tall and, well, you want to be a good neighbor. Right?

Tom said he would confer with Susan, me, and get back with her.

“Wellllllll,” I think, “she comes over and tends to things while we are gone. Welllll, we have no animals in hand. Wellllll, if she comes over and waters and feeds him. Welllll, I guess.”

Oh, it’s not that we are reluctant to help a neighbor out. It’s just someone coming over at 8:30 in the morning every day and so on. We are kind of casual here on the farm site. We enjoy our solitude. Haha.

The day arrives for the calf to arrive, and I have visions of a little calfer leaping about, my little grandchildren patting and having their pictures taken with him. It’s called memories.

Memories turn into horror when I go out to visit the young calf with my phone to take a picture to post on Instagram, and Tom cautions me to stop and let HIM settle down first.

Oh, OK. I’ll just sneak around and go up by the apple trees and take a picture from above so as to not disturb HIM.

I use my zoom setting and focus on the head because that all I can see of HIM. Mmm, methinks, “That’s a rather LARGE head for a calf. Cute head from what I can see in the tall grass.”

I go in and tell Tom, “Well, that’s NOT a little calf, I think.”

He responds, “Yes, I didn’t realize HE would be that large either.”

Just so you know, I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Tom was born in Illinois 10 miles from downtown St. Louis, Missouri. We are not farmers but gardeners, you know. Ranching is not in our blood.

Well, “Big John,” which is what I started calling HIM, trotted around the pasture looking for Momma, gal neighbor, familiar surroundings and other animals, and could not find any.

“Big John” was big, 800-900 pounds, not the small calf I thought he would be. 

“Big John” also was REALLY a bull, not a castrated steer, either. I had missed that part in Tom’s communications.  And oh, another detail not disclosed, HE had horns coming out of the side of his head!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we have this massive hunk of beef trotting around looking for home. Mooooing. Bellowing.

We are concerned for HIM and us, so Tom checks on him, not going too close of course. 

Big John is ramming himself into the waterer and knocking it over. The next few hours and Tom checks on him again and he has gotten into the barn by pushing his way through a cattle panel. So Tom calls our neighbor and she sends her brother to get him out of the barn.

Next morning check, Tom finds Big John has ripped off the Dutch doors at one end of the barn trying to get in again. Thank the Lord, he wasn’t born with a brain because he could have hopped up and just walked through the barn and out the door!

Moooo, bang bang. Flies, gnats and various bugs are feasting on Big John and he is very uncomfortable.

The next day, we come home from ministering, and Big John has wedged himself between the large sliding barn door and the barn wall. Another phone call to the neighbor. Tom talks, listens, and she says, “We will come tomorrow and bring him back home.”

The sky opened up and the angels rejoiced! Or that would be Tom and Susan rejoicing. 

So if you are having a Big John Day, remember, God is on your side.