I started out early yesterday morning, going through emails, answering, erasing, clearing out my inbox. As I was doing so, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish. It had 12 items on the list. After about 30 minutes of emails, Ron and I decided to take our daily walk. I’m thinking, “This is good. It’ll give me a jump start on the day.” We walked the mile of laps around our pond, then I headed straight to the garden to accomplish one of the items on my list - pulling weeds for an hour. Towards the end of the hour, Ron came up to the garden. I was pulling the weeds out of the cages around the tomatoes. We were delighting in the tomatoes which have already set on and visiting, when I recoiled violently. Something had hissed at me! It was a box turtle, hidden in the grass and weeds, inside the cage, around one tomato. Ron likewise reacted very strongly, thinking that perhaps I’d been bitten. I think I got his heartbeat up a little higher than our earlier exercise! He rescued the little guy - took him down to the pond. I continued to pull weeds - a little more cognizant of some of the live critters which could be there.
I finished my hour and headed inside. I figured 9 a.m. was great! I’d finished a couple of big tasks. Now I’d get the kids out of bed, do some Bible, get a jump on the rest of the day. (The kids love the summer schedule: sleep late, play hard, stay up late.) As they were slowly making their way downstairs, I picked blueberries and raspberries, tested the pool chemicals, started a load of laundry, and put away a couple of more things from the women’s retreat weekend I just had. The morning was moving really well.
We had just finished Bible when I got a call from some homeschooling friends. Their alpaca had just given birth. The cria (baby alpaca) was just minutes old and we were invited to go see. It was several hours before we went over. There were several things I wanted to get done - which, Christopher reminded all of us, were unlikely to get accomplished because we’d probably get stuck visiting. Little did he know how right he was!
Within five minutes of arriving, we could see that the little cria was in trouble. After giving birth, the mom did not want to let the little girl nurse. It’d been four hours. The cria was growing steadily more dehydrated. Ron and I had taken the children to see some alpacas a couple of years ago on a homeschool field trip. The lady who owned the alpacas was so friendly! We encouraged our friends to call her. They did. What she told them got things moving in a hurry: she said if her alpacas hadn’t started nursing in an hour, she made them.
The mom was not interested in being with the baby. We caught her and snubbed her to the fence. She promptly lay down.At that point, my friend tried to milk the mom while I held the cria’s mouth to the teet. When her hands grew tired, we switched position. Meanwhile, Ron and Jonathan left for the feedstore to get some colestrum for the cria, if we couldn’t get her nursing. Just when the baby finally latched on, the mom had had enough. She scrambled to her feet. It was a scary moment for all of us!! One of her feet made hard contact with the baby - and for a minute we were concerned her neck was broken. But when I took the baby, she raised her head! We were all so relieved!
Our friends started shearing the mom - with scissors. We took the baby, who’d gotten some milk and had perked up, back into the shade.
Ron soon returned. I started bottle-feeding. That was when Jonathan remembered that he and I were to work the concession stand at the ball game. It was just supposed to be the two of us! We left when I got half a bottle of formula down the baby.
We hurried to the ball park (35 minutes away) and arrived to work what would turn out to be another crazy two hours! It was a constant moving between putting popcorn in the popcorn machine, putting cheese in the crock pot, putting more pretzels in the warmer, stocking sodas, water, gaterade in the refrigerators, selling items, making it all work! Wow! It was intense! But Jonathan and I worked well together, I only burned one batch of popcorn, and we only had one person who was unhappy about the warmth (or relative lack thereof) of her cheese/nachos.
After our stint in the concession stand, we headed home. Jonathan called our home, wondering if Ron was home yet. When we couldn’t get him, we headed back to our friends’ home. We arrived to find the mom looking a little lighter - a whole bag of fleece cut off. The cria was very active, but had not yet nursed. They’d managed to get seven ounces of formula down her and it’d made all the difference.
As we drove home, we talked about the day: It was so different from what we’d been expecting! That’s when Jonathan reminded us of the saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. We also talked about the timing of everything. It was so obvious that God’s hand was involved in the day. We were there to help with the alpaca when they needed us. We knew a lady who could help when it was critical. We were able to make a positive difference in a dire situation.
Jonathan and I couldn’t help noting the irony of seeing another church marquee last night: Without the Bread of Life, you’re toast.