Choosing what to look at - Mud or Masterpiece

They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;

You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.  

Psalm 65:8 (NASB)

We've had a little rain lately, transforming the area around the barn to a dreadful swamp of muck and mire.  It sticks to your boots and it stinks.  I'm taking the photo below from inside the barn where it is high and dry.  Once we finish milking the cows and open the gate to the barn, Daisy and Rosie, slowly and reluctantly slog out to eat hay. Annie, our Nubian goat, likes walking through the mire even less, lifting her feet high, prancing in lady-like fashion so as not to get her "shoes" muddy. When the muddy area finally dries, I'm going to order a load or two of fill-dirt and build up the land around the barn.

The foot rot that we treated Daisy for that I was mentioning in a previous post, was undoubtedly brought about by the mud that encompasses the southeast corner of our property - or more accurately, by organisms that live in the mud.  You see, what looks like mud to you and I, if you put it under a microscope, is actually soil mixed with cow poop and urine and is teeming with living bacteria, including a bad one, (Fusobacterium necrophorum), that causes problems.  As an update, our treatment of Daisy's back left hoof with iodine has been successful and she's no longer limping.  

Mud!

After feeding all the laying hens, making sure that their trough of crushed oyster shells is full, turning off the lights to the barn and heading back inside with our buckets of milk, we look westward.  It is the end of the day.  We thankfully notice that the days are getting longer - ever so slightly.  This will enable us to start working on a chore list as long as my arm during daylight hours.

It's funny though, many times I dread my "real job" - sitting in an office behind a computer all day.  I never dread working on our little farm.  Every day is different and even if there are challenges and hardships, there is a sense of freedom, contentment, fulfillment and satisfaction I get from being outdoors and working on our little farm to get projects completed that I don't get elsewhere.

So despite the mud, at the end of the day there is peace and tranquility.  There is real beauty if you stop long enough to look around, but the choice is ours as to what we focus on. 

God's Masterpiece

Many times (more often than I'd like to admit) I'm guilty of only looking down at my circumstances and seeing only the 'mud' and in doing so, I miss looking up and seeing a magnificent portrait painted by the very hand of God.  I must constantly remind myself that his signature is everywhere and many times I miss it.