The Best Christmas Eve Ever 

As I wandered through the back pasture, checking the fences to make certain the storm that had just passed through did not down a tree on the barbed wire, I happened upon a turtle. This little guy was stuck in the lower part of the fence opening.  When the heavy rains had come earlier in the day, he apparently tried to swim through the hole, but became immobilized when his shell lodged in the narrow opening.

He had been there awhile, noting from the scrapes on his leathery shell.  He was exhausted and had all but given up on trying to escape the predicament that he was in. From his point of view, there was no way out except a slow agonizing death.  Until a pair of human hands intervened and unwedged his body from the jaws of the heartless cattle fence.

He looked back as he swam away from me, acknowledging with a couple splashes in the water that surely said, "Thank you, whoever you are, for saving my life."

Read the rest in "Chickens, Hawks and Grump Goats: Five Years on a Farm"

 Merry Christmas to You and Yours!