The bleating from Underwood

From the Facebook Album 365 friends by Mike Hazard

Marguerite Andrews loves history and knows everyone. She greeted one and all at the door of the Unitarian Church of Underwood who came to hear her husband Budd tell “Life Stories.”

Every story in Budd’s World has a wise smile in it. Here’s one about bleating.

“We heard a bleat, and another. Something was wrong with the lambs. We followed the call. The bleating stopped, then bleat bleat bleat, farther away. We followed the sound to where it had been. Again, the bleating began, far off. This went on, and on. Forty acres is a lot of land. The brush was thick, the bleating urgent. Finally, there. A fawn was caught in the wire of the fence. The doe stood near. The bleating was a deer.”

A buddy held the fawn while Budd untangled the legs and wire. “The legs were rubbed raw but not broken, not bleeding. The doe watched, waiting. Even mother sheep get excited when you are near their lambs, stamping the ground. This doe waited, watching. Freed, the fawn stood. Then we stepped back and the doe nudged the fawn. Off they went.

Animals are smarter than we know.”