All our animals are living in harmony right now, even ones that shouldn\u2019t be. \u00a0It\u2019s odd. \u00a0Dogs are supposed to chase cats, right? \u00a0Ours don\u2019t. \u00a0You\u2019d expect cats to stalk and pounce on a chick or duckling from time to time. \u00a0Not ours. \u00a0Have you ever met a horse that stands over a laboring cow and licks her belly as though trying to ease her labor pains? \u00a0Ours does. \u00a0There are moments on our franch that make me think about the way heaven will be. \u00a0There\u2019s when our dogs and cats gather around during the chicks and ducklings \u201crecess\u201d time. \u00a0This is when our children take them from their brooder rings in the shed to let them freely roam the backyard. \u00a0Our dogs and cats settle down in the lush spring grass to watch as the chicks and ducklings explore the franch for the first time. \u00a0You\u2019d be amazed to see our hyper border collie puppy stay perfectly still as our youngest child puts a duckling on its\u00a0head. \u00a0Then, there\u2019s the sweet relationship between our horse and our cows. \u00a0Our horse is a\u00a0team roping horse that my husband trains to chase down cows so he can rope its back legs after his partner ropes the front legs. \u00a0Our horse does so at the slightest touch of my husband\u2019s heel on his side, and at top speed. \u00a0But, on that very same day, don\u2019t be surprised to find our horse calmly standing watch over our cows and their calves like he\u2019s protecting them. \u00a0Our neighbor remarked one day that it looks like the horse is preaching a sermon standing over them and the prostrate cows are contemplating his words as they slowly chew their cud. \u00a0He\u2019s like the wise old Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit with all the answers. \u00a0He\u2019s the patriarch of the franch \u2013 the oldest and very first of all our franch animals. \u00a0We need Fern from Charlotte\u2019s Web to listen in. \u00a0Maybe, she’d hear him\u00a0reciting\u00a0Romans 12:16 from memory, \u201cLive in harmony with one another.\u201d \u00a0Or perhaps he\u2019s explaining to the cows the promised day of Isaiah 11:6, \u201cThe wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.\u201d \u00a0Because it\u2019s a little bit like that on our franch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All our animals are living in harmony right now, even ones that shouldn\u2019t be. \u00a0It\u2019s odd. \u00a0Dogs are supposed to chase cats, right? \u00a0Ours don\u2019t. \u00a0You\u2019d expect cats to stalk and pounce on a chick or duckling from time to time. \u00a0Not ours. \u00a0Have you ever met a horse that stands over a laboring cow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":931,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions\/931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}