Bare Feet and Bottle Calves

Life on the preservation involves a few events that I believe everyone should experience.  I truly do think the world would be a nicer place if more children had adequate shelter, good food, and didn't spend so much time strapped in car seats or in front screens, twiddling their thumbs.  That's not to say everyone should live rurally, because Scripture does address the fact that there are both urban and rural dwellers, but it's experiences that help shape the choices people do make.  I live very rurally, but I have experienced the urban and suburban lifestyle.  I've lived in everything from an apartment to an old Victorian home, and I've enjoyed the beach, as well as the mountains.  I was created to be right where I am, at this time.

Not everyone gets the wide spectrum of experiences I've enjoyed.  How do people actually make informed choices, if they remain in the only thing they've ever known?  For thousands of years that made sense unless you happened to hear the voice of your Creator on a mountain, but otherwise sons did what their fathers did and their fathers before that, but that really is no longer an option for many.  Most of the world was agrarian and/or self-employed.  Times have changed and many people have lost touch with the reality of a way of life.  For the majority, the way of life is dependency, deadlines, daycare, stress, and doctor appointments.

I would love to be able to let children and their stressed out parents spend a week-end at the preservation.  Let a little boy go fishing with his Dad at the pond.  Every little girl should be able to get creative in the kitchen, within reason, and boys too.   I guess this sounds gender specific, and it really shouldn't. Watching a cooking show and cooking are two different things.  Watching a reality show is not really living.

Children should get to be children and know there are still choices possible.  As old as I am, I still like having a big tub of new chicks from the incubator, peeping in the extra bedroom for a couple of weeks before putting them in the brooder pen.  It's also wonderful to watch a hen brood, remain stuck to that nest for 3 weeks then come out of the chicken house trailed by a dozen little fluffy chicks.  When my grandkids were little they called the baby chicks "cotton poofs."

Every evening, chores end with giving a bottle to the calves.  They are getting big enough now, I have to keep the fence between us as they are strong enough to "take the bottles away from me" in their enthusiasm.  Chores begin with getting the milk for the bottles from the goats.  It's so nice, when it's all done for the evening to strain the milk, head out the back and feel that wonderful dirt under my bare feet and see the calves on the other side of the fence, just waiting for me to bring them their bottles.

Every child, regardless of the choices they will make as adults, deserve the opportunity to experience an evening with no television, and enjoy life outdoors with bare feet.