Hello,
My wife and I went brush hog hunting today. They are not very easy to find. We heard that there might be a couple near Johnstown. So, we loaded up our gear and headed
east…through Laughlintown….then Jennerstown…..then Stoystown….and finally got
to Johnstown. Sure enough, at the
edge of Geistown we spotted one, just as we had heard….a tan brush hog with
black markings. It was a beauty.
If you’ve never seen a brush hog, know this: they are dangerous. They prowl through fields with vicious
hunger, devouring anything in
their path. They chomp through two
and three inch trees like there were mere toothpicks. So, you can only imagine what would become of you or me if a
brush hog got ahold of us.
As with most hunts, the first one you see isn’t always the one you take
home. “You might have better luck
4 or 5 miles south of here,” a guy who knew a thing or two about brush hogs
told us. So, determined not to get
skunked, we loaded up again and picked up our hunt toward the south.
With all the twists and turns, we could have easily gotten lost and
would have had to give up on our hunt, but being the experienced frontier folk
that we have become, we found the spot where rumor was that some brush hogs had
been spotted. Once again, our info
was right….true, they were a little bit harder to see from the road than the
first brush hog,…..and we drove right by them. But when we realized that we had ventured too far, we turned
around and retraced our tracks slowly, and glancing to our right we spotted
them…a family of brush hogs…one that looked to be 6 feet, another that was
surely 5 feet, and one that was smaller yet…maybe 4 feet…looking kind of like
Goldilock’s three bears.
“Yous folks hunting for a brush hog,” said a guy who spotted us.
“Sure are,” we said.
“Well, thems is some mighty fine ones that yous is lookin’ at right
here.”
These were reddish in color, and although we had hoped to snag us a tan
one, and we also knew that we could have tried to track down a deere, nevertheless we decided to take our aim
at the middle size brush hog that we had spotted before it got away from us. And with the click of a credit card
bouncing on the cash machine’s desk the hunt was over.
In a couple of hours, the said, red brush hog is to be delivered to our
house, and with a few turns of a bushing, we will have ourselves an implement
to attach to the back of our tractor to mow the fields and woods of our
property.
Thirty-plus years ago when I decided to follow a calling to be a pastor,
I would have never dreamt that this there to before suburbanite kid whose hands
tended to swell up when lifting bales of hay would be hunting down a brush hog
to mow fields in rural Pennsylvania….but here I am! Just goes to show you that although there are times when
following the call to serve Christ is a tough row to plow, there are other
times (like hunting a brush hog) that are just plain fun!
Hope the calling that you have followed is likewise peppered with such
plain fun times!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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