Shut the Barn Door

How forgetting the basics can lead to disaster ...

Photo by Joe Dudeck on Unsplash

Animals are not often malicious, but they are ALWAYS opportunistic. I was reminded of this fact yesterday when I climbed up the hill behind our house to the paddock. It was later in the day, and I wondered why the animals weren’t complaining about getting brunch instead of breakfast that morning. Usually if Lyric, our mini jersey, doesn’t get fed by a certain point, she starts asking why in her rumbling, resonant way which echoes across the narrow valley in which we live … over and over and over again.

So, as when one’s toddlers are unusually quiet, I suspected my animals might be getting into some trouble. I just had no idea how much until I found the feed shed door hanging open. Lyric — along with a posse of goats, a contingent of chickens, and a partnership of pigs — were having a heyday amid the feed bins. Thankfully, most of the bins were still closed (which is a grace because goats can get dangerously sick if they gorge on grain), and my cow’s neck was too short to get much from the bag of pig feed sitting at the bottom of one barrel.

Unfortunately, my cow had been in the feed shed so long, she had used it as a privy as well as a buffet. Glops of cow dung lay piled at the doorway, and half the floor was wet with urine. It was terrible, and I said so.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Emotions acknowledged, I now needed to get the animals out of the shed because no cleaning could possibly take place under twenty-four hooves and half a dozen chicken feet. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about living with animals over the last nine months, it’s persuasion is so much more effective than force. And what better way to persuade a hungry cow that she should get her head out of the pig feed than to offer her her own?

A few shakes of pellets in the old white bucket (plus an instructive yank on the halter to get her head out of the bin) was all it took to have Lyric happily munching from her own manger.

Now the mess.

I must admit, my first thoughts were not very gracious toward the child who’d accidentally left the barn door open. The resulting catastrophe had not been a part of my original plan for that morning. What killed me was how easily the mess could have been averted by the simple act of closing a door. How hard is that?!

But it didn’t take long for me to remember how I had done the very same thing myself earlier this year. My child wasn’t being any more malicious than I had been; we’d both simply fed the animals and forgotten a basic step in the process — most likely because we’d gotten distracted by something or were busy doing other homesteading tasks.

The realization I had made the same mistake my child had did help soften my heart toward him. And once I had tempered my emotions, I was ready to start solving the problem at hand.

As I was carrying out the old pee-soaked feed bags (which I’d needed to remove anyway) and started filling a bucket of water to wash the floor of cow poo, it struck me how easy it is to forget the basics in any application and how disastrous the consequences can be. Whether it’s skydiving (don’t forget the parachute!), driving (don’t forget to stop!), or baking (don’t forget to turn the oven on … or off!), the simplest things often matter most.

No matter how much we master, we never outgrow the basics. In fact the longer we’ve known them, the more we’re tempted to ignore them or take them for granted which puts us in danger of forgetting them altogether. And, as in the case of my barn door, the results can be disastrous even when there was no malice intended.

Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash

This is especially true when it comes to relationships.

As I was taking tea with my husband this evening, I shared about the barn door incident. This was the first day we’d taken tea together all week due to some out-of-state travel and hosting out-of-town family. Normally, evening tea time forms the communication cadence in our relationship. And the fact we hadn’t taken tea together in a few days was showing in the strain of our voices as we (mis)communicated a few times earlier this week. To finally spend some one-on-one time over a steaming brew of British Blend Tetley and a piece of pumpkin cake felt so healing. We were finally back in sync.

Turns out, relationships require investment. Spending intentional time with someone is a basic principle for forming, growing, and maintaining a relationship. Whether it’s my relationship with God, a family member, a friend, or even an animal, if I forget the basics of relationship, I risk straining the relationship.

Photo by Kevin Gent on Unsplash

Forgiveness is another one of those relationship basics. I’m happy to report that after I cleaned out the feed barn, I was able to tell my son what happened without raising my voice and gently remind him to please shut the barn door.

:)