All Creatures Great and Small

I hadn't been out to the farm in a few days, but we had collected a bucket of leftover scraps for the little pigs, so I went along with my husband on his daily pleasure excursion to check on the animals. It was cold, so at first I sat in the car as Howard and our son Greg fed and admired their motley crew.  Soon I had to admit that the whole vignette was quite fetching.

The little pink pigs ran about, looking for all the world like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. They had come out of their cozy quarters and eagerly devoured their food, and now they were happily rooting in the soft earth they were rapidly turning into a mud bog. With their cheerful, dirty faces, the mud-streaked little porkers reminded me of children playing in the mud!

My gaze went to the two goats in their corral.  Their winter coats were absolutely dazzling, having grown full and luxurious with the coming of winter.  Especially the male goat, long black hair glistening in the sun against the white of the rest of his coat.  His sire was from the high mountains of Mexico, a magnificent, if somewhat forbidding animal with his dagger-like horns.  Hopefully our goat will take after his domestic mother, also the mother of our female goat whose white coat, with splotches of brown, was reminiscent of an expensive cow-hide rug.

The goats frolicked  up and down a ramp the guys had made, then reared up on the fence as if looking for admiration.  Once in a while the red rooster wandered too close to them, and they would make a threatening dash toward him as he scurried to safety in a flash of flapping wings.

The chickens had been released from their quarters for scratching and foraging in the barnyard.  They pecked and strolled contentedly, and I couldn't help noticing what beautiful birds they had become.  From the little mail-order balls of brown fluff that had gotten their start in a basket in our house, they had become these shiny, gold-streaked, sleek fowl, holding their own with the big kids (no pun intended!).

Best of all was the farmer wanna-be slouched against the fence eyeing the creatures appreciatively.  I had to go and join him for a closer look.  I thought of the words from a song, "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all." And of the scripture, And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good," Genesis 1:31.