Coming home...

Coming home after being away always is a mixed blessing. I am happy to sleep in my own bed, surrounded by all that makes this place home for me. But, the next morning I begin to play catch-up and my tongue hangs out. Somehow, animals always make you pay for your absence. The cats throw up and pee in the worst possible places. The dogs look at you with big brown eyes that say “I thought you were gone forever.” The cows stand and complain loudly that they were not given enough sweet feed. The barn cats rush you as you open cans of cat food. The donkeys butt you with their heads as you try to feed them. The horses, however, win the prize for payback this time.
Charles was finishing up some grading at the stable. I let the horses out to graze so he wouldn’t have to get out to open and close the gate while fending off anxious equines every time he drove through. They had been penned up for the five days we were gone so I knew they needed to stretch their legs, run with the wind and nosh on some winter grass. The donkeys were so excited to be set free that they ran and kicked up their heels, a funny sight.
Chip, our neighbor, called at 9:30 to tell me they were all in his front yard grazing. Someone had opened the gate I had closed and the equine crew love his front yard grass. He didn’t mind them grazing but there was an open road from his house down to the river that I imagined they would love to run. So I went in the mule wearing my bedroom slippers (I am never adequately prepared for these encounters of the frustrating kind) to haul the asses and horses back over into our farm pastures.
Junie B co-operated and let me fasten the lead to her halter. We walked without incident back through the open gate followed by Dixie, Shirley and Kate. A few feet past the gate, Junie B popped her head back and the metal clip broke. She was set free. In about ten seconds, she realized she was loose, wheeled around and ran for her life through the still open gate towards the old road bed that runs through all the farms here. The last I saw of her, she was running wide open with Dixie hot on her heels. The donkeys ran back to Chip’s front yard thumbing their noses at me. I drove home, changed clothes and shoes, prepared for a search and recover mission, cussing myself for being so kind to animals.
When I got back to the old road, there they were, sheepishly walking towards home, Dixie in the lead, trying to find a place to cross over the old rusty fence. I brought them home with the donkeys trotting at our heels. I closed the gate and set them free again. They ran towards the back pasture tails and manes flowing in the wind.
Around four thirty, I noticed the donkeys were back at the stable munching hay but there was no sign of the horses. Once again I climbed into the mule and headed out. First I fed the barn cats (again) then carried more hay to the cows. As I rounded the curve, there they stood, in between two fences, trapped on a narrow piece of ground with a steep drop off, heads hanging over the fence looking pitiful but unrepentant.
After feeding the cows, I climbed through the barbed wire fence and went to them. Dixie spooked and tried to push past Junie B, pushing her off the soft ground ledge down into grapevines and briars in the creek. Back I went through the fence (did I mention it was barbed wire?) to the mule. The clippers were not in the back so I grabbed the hatchet. Through the fence again, down in the creek, chopping grapevines and thorny rose stems, trying to free Junie B. She stood patiently, quietly as I worked, both of us bleeding from encounters with big thorns. When I freed her, she climbed the other bank to join Dixie where they once again were trapped.
Little Michael came to the burn pile to dump some wood. I called and asked for help. He came with his handy dandy all purpose knife that has forty other tools in it, and clipped the barbed wire to let the horses out. After I led the horses home, I returned and we patched the fence so the calves wouldn’t get down in the creek to play. All in a day’s homecoming...
I can’t help but wonder if God has this much trouble with me when I am running away from home. Knowing myself, remembering my run aways from the loving One, the One who always comes to find me, I send an apology prayer straight from my heart to God. Please don’t hold my folly against me when I run heedless towards other paths and recklessly away from You. It is but a momentary loss of good sense and a drunkeness on the illusion of freedom outside the fences of home. When I do not come to myself, turn around and start the journey back to your Loving Presence, will you come looking for me, please?