The Bull and The Butterfly

Bull was big, much bigger that any bull you are used to! He was a black and white Fresian, almost 7 feet tall (think basketball tall) and weighed more than 2,500 pounds (depending on the season). That’s more than a ton of bull no matter what kind of ton you use. Now, a good steak weighs 8 ounces. If all of Bull could be turned into an average good steak, he would provide you with 5,000 of them! That’s how big he was. If it takes a village to raise a child, Bull could feed the whole village.
Fortunately, Bull was used for stud and not for steak.

Bull was something to be prized and everyone, human or not, treated him that way. He had a private pasture overlooking acres and acres of other pasture inhabited by a very large herd of cows. Bull’s job was to service the cows so they could produce calves, but he only worked 2 months a year, and even that was just 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off (so he really only worked one month a year). True, while other bulls would service 6-8 cows a day, Bull would average more than a dozen. So his production ratio was much higher than the average bull. But calves aren’t about how many times. They are about how many shots score. And he didn’t disappoint. Cows serviced by Bull produced and that was that!

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The Monkey

The monkey lived in an ancient cypress tree in the very middle of a swamp.  She had lived there all of her life, the only monkey in a swamp of wondrous creatures too numerous to count.  Many monkeys, including some people, feared the swamp creatures and believed the swamp was a dark and treacherous place to live.  Leaves and snakes slithered through cypress roots. Alligators lurked just below the water, visible eyes and nostrils anticipating an opportunity to leap from the black water and drag an unwary creature to a suffocating death.  Plants and spiders stung.  Bears and big cats waited at the swamp's edge ready to devour anything trying to leave or just rest on dry ground.  All in all, the swamp had a very bad reputation. 

But the monkey loved it and she felt safe in her tree.  After all, it was her tree.  From it she could get everything she needed to live.  None of the other creatures bothered her as long as she stayed close to her tree.

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The Dragon

In a land none of us have ever seen, in a valley perfect and green, lived a very curious girl. She was old enough to spend whole days away from home but too young to be a woman interested in love and a home of her own. The girl was known to be more curious than most. When her grandfather tried to catch her image with a camera, the photograph showed the girl with her head tilted to the side trying to catch what was in the camera. Once she stayed up night after night waiting to see who left those silvery trails on the wet grass and where they went. The girl used to ask why about everything but found it irritated everyone. She gave it up and settled for observing things herself until she discovered the why of it.

The valley the girl lived in was surrounded by mountains so high and treacherous there was not a pass in or out of her village.  The girl wondered where they all came from before the village but she was the only one who was curious.  Life was easy in the village. 

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The Pig and Pearl

Pearl loved Pig. Don’t worry yourselves about how that is possible. Just believe that it was so.

Pearl lived in a solid gold ring. Pig? Well, Pig lived in a sty. Three times a day Mrs. Farmer removed Pearl from her baby finger, right hand, and placed her on the windowsill overlooking the back yard and the sty. From that perch, Pearl watched Pig and dreamed of a Pearl/Pig wedding. Pig was large. Pearl was not. Pig grew and grew and grew. Pearl did not. Pig changed his world; rooting and tooting and looting anything in sight. Pearl? Pearl just was; beautiful, but just Pearl.

Most days on the sill, Pearl called to Pig in her loudest but still pathetic check-me-out, how-can-you-not-notice-me voice, “Pig, Pig look at me!” Pig never heard her. Pig was busy. Pig was wallowing and eating and…well, you know what happens after eating! Pearl kept longing to be noticed.

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The Chicken

Chicken was headstrong. Her grandmother said she was spoiled. Her mother said she couldn’t do anything for Chicken because she was so smart she didn’t need anything. Chicken thought this meant that grandmother didn’t like her and mother feared her. So Chicken felt alone and plowed through life with her head down and her ideas firmly fixed. What else are you going to do in such a circumstance?

All chickens are at first chicks. Chicks can aggravate and bewilder their grandmothers and mothers, but eventually they grow up and have to make the most of what they have. When Chicken grew up, she started working on an egg producing farm…free range. At first she was just glad to be on her own and with other chickens her age. But Chicken had very definite ideas about eggs and their value. When she found out that her eggs were sold to markets for human consumption, she was appalled!

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The Tigers

The tigers knew each other. Their owners, a king and queen from different countries, showed them off at festivals and often their cages were placed side by side.

The king boasted that he was the mightiest ruler because he made his tiger ferocious with the simple point of his index finger. He delighted in demonstrating the power for the festival crowds. He walked slowly around the tiger’s cage, his pompous nose in the air and his eyes turned away from the cage. Then in a flash he whirled around and pointed to his tiger, his smirk now a sneer. His tiger leapt at the cage bars, snarling and biting, his sharp teeth causing heart-pounding fright in the on-lookers.

The king waved his hand across the air, shrugged his shoulders, and shouted loudly, “Who could be mightier than I who can cause such anger in a tiger?”

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