Belly Up

I held a tool in my hand on Saturday that I am a little embarrassed to say I don't know if I have ever used before. It was a shovel. My new friend came over and taught me how to make some flowerbeds where there were none. She and I broke up the very hard and dry soil with shovels.

Next we headed out to the horse manure pile that we have in our field behind the stable. I drove the riding mower with the trailer behind it over to the pile. We shoveled (again) the manure into the trailer. It was an old pile of manure, so we weren't sure if it would be too dry. It was nice and moist under the top layer and filled with crickets and at least one snake. That snake is now dead. It was only about a foot and a half long and appeared to be a "harmless" bull snake. I saw it and yelled that there was a snake, and my friend used that shovel at lightning speed and chopped it's head right off. She flung the body out of the way with her shovel, and it landed belly up. We continued to shovel the old poop.

When I was a little girl, I remember walking out by the garden with my Bigdaddy when we saw a dead snake. He turned it over belly up. The weather was dry, and he said that if you turn a snake belly up it will rain. He was part American Indian and had lots of great sayings. Very soon it started to rain. I remembered this when I saw that snake belly up. Our ground is so parched here, and we could desperately use some rain. I told Heidi about it and she chuckled. About five minutes after we drove the manure back around to the future flower bed site, the rain clouds started forming over the mountain.

She helped me with the entire project from start to finish, and it started to rain as we planted the last plant. What a great day of learning some new skills and enjoying a friend at the same time. To say that I am a little sore from the four hours of shoveling and planting would be a drastic understatement. I could hardly move the next morning. I never knew the ground could be so hard and so dry. I never knew horse manure could transform the soil. I never knew my forearms and shoulders could be so sore to the touch.

I have plenty of manure left on the pile in the field. It is nice to put it to some sort of good use. I am thankful for the day and a half of rain that followed my planting. I am also thankful for the remembrance of Bigdaddy as I was working. Was the rain from the snake being belly up? I don't know, but it was fun to pretend something good came from finding a snake.

Hosea 10:12 "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you."