Old Cow Belle: Old Family Pets

Talk about it

Those of us who are overly sentimental usually keep our pets until they get really old. (Or until they are in a lot of pain that cannot be controlled.) We keep them even though they require a lot of special care…medications, food they can tolerate, many, more potty breaks, helping them up and down from chairs and things.

Pastor Dan from Bethel wove all of that into a great sermon, pointing out how God continues to care for us even when we get old and feeble. (I listen to Bethel while I get ready to go to my own church.)

All this stuff about old pets kind of reminded me of me and my family. About how my children go on caring for me even in my doddering years, doing all the heavy lifting (wood, etc.), being patient when I go somewhere with them by scouting out the bathrooms for me, concerned about my medications.

So far, I can do a lot of my own care, but it’s nice to know that, when I am no longer able, they will keep on helping me, and not euthanize me like we sometimes have to do without pets.

And then I went on to hear another good sermon from Pastor John. It’s all this “soul food” that keeps life worth living.

Saturday, when the weather was so nice, I got my ash barrel emptied. The kids fussed about that too, but it’s not a hard job. I scoop the ashes into the wheelbarrow and just wheel it behind the storage shed in the weeds.

Then I decided to unload my “tomato garden” too. So I parked the wheelbarrow right below the deck. I knew they were too heavy to carry down the steps, so I dumped them over the railing, right into the wheelbarrow. It worked for all of them except the last one.

That last one had retained too much rain water, and it smelled bad. Actually it reeked! Wouldn’t you know it, that one landed on the side of the wheelbarrow, tipping the whole load onto the ground. What a mess! Then I had to shovel it all back into the wheelbarrow.

I wonder…do bluebirds sometimes hang around these parts all winter? They are still staying by Sonia’s next door around the bird bath and on the trees. I know that sometimes robins stay all winter if there is enough food for them, but never heard that

bluebirds do.

It appears that there is turmoil in churches besides our Lutheran one. In a quote in the Observer, July 12, Former President Jimmy Carter says: “….my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be ‘subservient’ to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief—-confirmed in the Holy Scriptures…that we are all equal in the eyes of God.”

Tags: church news, lifestyle, columns, ellsworth, wisconsin, pets