Freedom?

The Sad Tale of Phineas the Steer

The bell in our driveway sounded an alarm. Jumping out of bed, Judd hurried to the door and flipped on the porch lights. Beyond the edge of artificial light lay quiet darkness. No visitor at the door; no car in the drive.

“Must have been a deer,” Judd mumbled as he crawled back into the warm bed. After several more alarms from the bell (“Probably deer,” we assured ourselves), silence reigned, and we both fell blissfully into dreams.

The next morning as we filled our bowls with granola, Judd glanced out the kitchen window. “Hey! There’s a cow on the porch.” Setting his bowl on the counter, he grabbed the phone to call the Troyers who live across the road.

I ran to the front door to get another view. Sure enough, it was Phineas. The Troyer’s steer was greedily filling his mouth with some of my Creeping Jenny. Rushing out to say “Good morning,” I startled Phineas who quickly turned away and galavanted across the yard.

Stopping midway in our yard, he appeared torn between returning to his new-found friends, my donkey and goat, who were secured in their pen or going back home.

My two” captives,” Donqui and Buster, watched in awe and jealous curiosity at the spectacle Phineas had created.

By the time Phineas’ owners, Dan, Caleb, and Josh, had arrived, Phineas was ready to go back home. Cantering across the road, he followed them through their yard back to his own pen.

A short while later, when I went to do my morning chores. Buster the goat greeted me with more than usual enthusiasm. As I unlatched the gate, he lowered his head and pushed between my legs and the gate.

He was free now just like that naughty steer, he seemed to think. I watched as he mosied around, picking up bits and pieces of leaves, nibbling on the rose bush, tasting the tender grass just outside his pen. Ah! Freedom.

All night long Phineas had taunted them. They had witnessed freedom, and it was tantalizing.

If I left the gate open for Buster to come back while I poured grain into the feeders and tossed out some hay, I was not sure where Donqui’s heart would take him: off to freedom with Buster, or to the newly poured grain. I HAD to lock the gate and trust that Buster would soon tire of his freedom.

While Buster was nibbling grass and leaves in the yard, Donqui dined on new grain and fresh hay. It only took a little coaxing from me for Buster to finally make the decision to come back into the pen. Safe, content, fed, protected, Buster had made a wise decision.

Phineas’s decisions over the next week were not wise. After calls from various neighbors, Troyers came to the hard decision that no fence was going to keep the free-spirited steer from wandering around our little community. Phineas had become intoxicated with freedom.

Phineas’ fate was sealed because of his decision to be unshackled from the standard rules of farm-life: pens and fences have a purpose. Now he was headed to the sale barn, where many way-ward animals eventually find their demise.

Little decisions we make can create problems, sometimes fatal problems. The desire for freedom from rules that seem to restrict us can entice us away from the security of what may seem dull, old, or too restrictive, into an open, lawless, or forbidden field of opportunity.

Buster the goat chose well. Phineas the steer did not. Buster lives contentedly in his secure pen. Phineas is hamburger.

Freedom is not lawlessness; freedom is liberty under law. (quote from Teri Gasser)