Good Neighbors

It was around seven o'clock yesterday evening when I slogged through ankle deep mud to go milk Daisy and Rosie.  When it gets dark all of the chickens routinely go to their spot to roost for the night.  After a grueling day of pecking and scratching, they're ready to bed down for the night at the Motel 6.  There must have been a shake-up somewhere in the pecking order because I was greeted with seven birds roosting in a new spot - the gate to the barn.

We'll leave the light on for ya!

I looked and saw that there were two roosters - a Rhode Island Red in the middle facing the camera and a Barred Rock Rooster on the far right with his tail feathers hanging down.  There were also three barred rock hens and two Rhode Island Red hens.  This guy needs to get with the program, though, and turn around. The rest of the birds are facing south and he's got his head toward the foot of the bed.  An odd bird, indeed.

An odd bird

They're all different.  Different sexes.  Different breeds.  But they all get along when it is bedtime.  Good neighbors, you might say.

Milking two cows by hand takes me 45 minutes from back door to back door, so I've got plenty of time to pray and/or think.  After seeing the birds all lined up close together and getting along, I started thinking about neighbors.  We've been blessed to always have good neighbors.  Many times I see people that live close to each other erect big privacy fences.  I understand that completely.  Everyone needs some privacy.  I've talked to some people, though, who live like this and the fences are obstructions that keep you from meeting your neighbors - or maybe the fence isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem.  Some people can live for years right next door to someone and never know them.

Or I don't know, maybe they are just heeding a verse from the book of Proverbs that I always think is funny:

Proverbs 25:17 Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor's house, Or He will become weary of you and hate you.

Neighbors are indeed a blessing and we've been fortunate to have some real good ones.  They'll keep an eye on things when you're not around.  During hurricanes we've worked together cleaning up each others' yards after storms, mowed each others' lawns, and helped each other out with projects.  We'll share fruits, vegetables, and baked goods.  One of our neighbors has fish fries and invites us over or will bring over a big plate of whatever they're cooking. Another neighbor is originally from Scotland and out of the blue she'll bring over piping hot homemade shortbread cookies or banana bread.

Growing up on the farm, we had great farming neighbors - the Smiths and the Monceaux's.  We all had shops full of tools and we'd share tools, equipment, and welding machines.  If your tractor got bogged down in the mud, you could count on your neighbor to come with a tractor and a chain and pull you out and you'd do likewise for them.  When you were finished harvesting and your neighboring farmer was still cutting rice, you'd bring your combine, truck and cart and help him out until the work was done and the rice was in the bins.

We like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists, and we are to a certain extent. But it is true as John Donne once wrote:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 No man is an island.  We need each other in good times and we'll certainly need each other in bad times.  Thank God for good neighbors.