Animals know where to go for help

Although it's happened many times in my life, it always surprises me when an animal comes to me and lets me know there's a problem they can't solve alone.  If you've been around animals much, you've experienced this, I'm sure.  It's very touching, and in some ways, I consider it an honor.  
Dogs seem to know they should go to their masters when they're hurt or ailing.  Even cats, independent as they are, know when they're in need.  
When I was fully nine months pregnant with my son, there was a very wild cat in the barn on my parent's place where we were renting a mobile home.  She had new kittens, and I went out and looked at them sometimes.  Mother Cat, of course, jumped out of the nest and kept her distance.  
The second day I went out to see the kittens, a tomcat was in the middle of killing one of them.  I was frantic with worry over this situation, and I took the three remaining kittens into the house.  The mother followed me at a distance; I opened the door, got back from it and laid the kittens on the floor where she could see them, and she came on in.  I then spread a blanket on the couch and put the kittens there; Mother Cat jumped up and started nursing them.  
I was already past the due date for my baby to be born, and I realized I was going to soon be in the hospital for three days, and when I got home, I'd have my hands full with a baby; I hoped against hope the tomcat wouldn't come back again, and took the babies back to the barn that evening.  
The next morning I opened the door to go outside and there was Momma Cat with two babies:  she had carried them to me, to be taken care of.  I told her I was sorry, that I just couldn't do it, and took them back to the barn.  We had started with four kittens; now there were two.  
Before the day was over, the tomcat murdered the other two kittens, and in my pregnant, hormonal, emotional state, I cried for hours.  That cat asked me for help and I had denied her.
  
Several years ago we had a couple of Limousin cows.  They were huge, beautiful cows, and they had lovely, big babies.  However, I quickly found out they didn't want me messing with their calves.  One of them had twins in 2004, and while the calves were newborn and easy to handle, I wanted to check and see whether they were male or female.  That cow butted me down a hill fast enough to make my head spin.  Not long ago I related this tale to a local farmer; he said his daughter raised some Limousin heifers for 4H, trained them to lead and showed them at fairs.  They were absolute pets, he told me.  "But you couldn't think about getting close to their calves."
Well, mine weren't pets.  I'm not even sure they liked me.  
However, when one Limousin cow's calf figured out how to get through the fence to the neighboring property and she couldn't follow, that cow bawled and bellowed until she got my attention, then followed me back to the house until I got some help.  You can read the story in my old journal HERE.  
So it was no surprise to me yesterday that Bonnie left her calf and came bawling to me; neither was it a surprise when I started walking toward the back pasture and she took the lead and led me straight to her baby.  Animals know where to turn when they have no other place to go.  
That's more than I can say for a lot of humans.  
"This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles."  Psalm 34:6

Fair day

Yesterday morning it was overcast, and even sprinkling a little; I suggested to Cliff that we go to Sedalia to the Missouri State Fair.  He quickly agreed, since such weather conditions limit what he can do around here.  As we wended our way south and east, the sprinkles turned into gentle rain, and at one point Cliff was going to turn around.  Then we decided to just go for it; Sedalia isn't all that far, and we were in the car, not on the motorcycle.  
Unfortunately, when I go to the fair without a plan, I don't usually see many of the free events, because it's all about timing.  I really wanted to take in the conservation department's program about "Feral hogs in Missouri".   (No, I am not kidding.)
I had fair food on my mind, and both Cliff and I had a corn dog and a pineapple whip cone; we also shared a funnel cake, and on the way out I had a less-than-perfect caramel apple with nuts.  I say less-than-perfect because it was a half-green red delicious apple, and the peanuts were a little stale.  Caramel apples should be made with a tart variety of apple!  Boy, that fair food gets expensive.  Anyway, we satisfied my cravings in that department.  My Dave Ramsey envelopes were empty, but I had four rolls of quarters I'd been hiding away.  Let me just say that I'm glad Cliff's payday is tomorrow.   The only envelopes that have any money left in them are the "doctors", "clothes" and the "critters" (cows, dogs, and cats) envelope.  All grocery money, fun money, and "misc." money is gone.  However, we did stick to budget and put a tiny bit in savings.

When we first entered the fairgrounds, we went to the cattle barns where we saw several steers with a weight problem.  

I say "problem" because when you see a steer this fat, you know he is probably going to end up as prime beef in an expensive restaurant.  So whether he knows it or not, he has a problem.  
Cliff and I were walking along a sidewalk in search of a funnel cake when he looked down and said, offhandedly, "Oh, a poodle."  
Huh?  
He pointed at an oil stain on the sidewalk that, indeed, resembled a poodle.  This just goes to prove that Cliff is an oil-stain expert, having worked on various kinds of old farm equipment for years.  He knows oil-stain art when he sees it.  

We won't talk about the strange looks I got from other fair-goers when I took a picture of an oil stain in the sidewalk.  Listen, art is where you find it.
Most of the rest of our day at the fair was spent watching the super-farmer competition, which I found to be great fun.  

These big ole' farmer guys compete to see who can toss a forty-two-pound hay bale the highest.  At the end, the winner made it over thirteen feet.  Meanwhile on the sidelines, the ladies tossed thirty-eight-pound bales for distance, not height.   I didn't get a video of that competition.  However, there was the egg-gathering contest.  The guy sits on a hay bale while the lady runs to another bale and gathers six eggs; one of them is hard-boiled:  She has to crack them on the man's head until she finds the hard-boiled egg.  It's a timed event, and the couple with the least time, wins. 

Everybody in the contest seemed to be having a blast.  

In this event, the couple had to stack the hay exactly like it was at the other end.  


I was disappointed that there weren't any horses in the barns; the society horse show was over for this year.  I asked the lady at an information tent about this, and she said on Friday there will be draft horses there for competition.  That's also the day the dairy cattle, including Jerseys, will be there.  
If we go back then, we'll pack a lunch, stay away from the expensive fair food, and hopefully get an earlier start.  And I'll have a schedule made up of the free events I want to watch.  
When we left the fair, we made a stop at Menard's, a store that almost always has Walmart prices beat; I keep hoping they'll put a Menard's in this area.  We picked up a few bargains, then headed home where we had the adventure I told about in the previous entry.