it started with a flat tire

 I live down a couple miles of dirt road. I love where I live--protected by the hills all around, tucked back where we have to cross the creek multiple times to get to our house--but it isn't the ideal place for my little Prius. While my tiny hybrid is an ideal vehicle for my 2-hour round trip every day, it isn't ideal for rough dirt roads, creek beds, and a driveway that winds through the field.

So it wasn't surprising when I had a flat. Frustrating, and a definite inconvenience when we got home Sunday evening, but not surprising. My husband was going to be volunteering at our kids' JR High track meet on Monday, which just happened to be in the town where I work, so we put off fixing it for the night and I just bummed a ride with him for work Monday. When we got home, then, Nathan jacked my car up and got the tire off. That process wasn't without it's own challenges (which I won't get into, but which involved my dad and the tractor), but it was done. My dad offered to go to the tire shop for us and offered his pickup for me to drive to work today. It was parked in the back corner of our yard where Nathan had unloaded the posts he had gotten to be able to finish fencing our yard, back in a section that gets pretty swampy in the spring rains, so last night he moved the truck to the other side of the yard where we park, pulling up behind our old truck that's not running.

This morning, we all left a little bit late due to a bit of a rough morning (teenagers... enough said). Nathan and the kids all piled into the Suburban and I went to climb into Pop's truck where I was greeted with an odd sight: a little red calf was standing up beside our old truck, very still. It took my mind a second to register what was wrong, but then it clicked--like the toddler that she is, the calf had stuck her head into the wheel well and gotten stuck there. I'm guessing there had been a cat up on the tire, probably one that had used that space as a hiding place from the 2-month old puppies we have running around right now. Whatever her reason, though, the poor thing was stuck tight. It took me pushing her forward while Nathan maneuvered her head for us to get her unstuck. Thinking back, when I had woken up to a calf hollering at 1 o'clock in the morning it was probably her I was hearing. So after about 6 hours standing with her head stuck, she was a bit dazed and shaky on her feet. She seemed fine otherwise, though.

Here's the thing--if I hadn't had a flat, we wouldn't have even seen that side of the old truck this morning. That poor calf would have been stuck until probably 4 this afternoon, which I can't imagine!

There's a familiar saying: "God works in mysterious ways."

Sometimes He uses flat tires to help a curious calf.