I love spending time with my chickens.  It’s one of my favorite times of the day.  I love going into their big chicken coop to feed them.  I love how they surround me impatiently waiting for their food, and I love petting them as they begin to eat.  After a while, I go back outside and begin to collect their eggs from the outside door to their nesting boxes. I have to step up onto a stool to reach them. I never get tired of that happy feeling when I see their beautiful eggs just laying there.  As I load them into my bucket, I admire each one.  They range from very large to very small and from blue, brown, and white.  Today was no different than any other day.  I loaded my bucket with 13 eggs.  I was already planning how I was going to cook my eggs for breakfast.  I hadn’t noticed that where I was standing had become very overgrown and needed desperately to be trimmed.   The grass had even grown up and around this stool.  As I finished collecting the eggs, I stepped down from the stool.  My left foot felt a  “ little funny ”, but I didn’t pay much attention.  I was wearing my rubber boots like I always do.  Right at that moment, I had a very gentle thought or feeling or something to not step all the way down onto my left foot.  It was such a “ fleeting “ thought.  I actually almost missed it.  Then my little dog “ Copper “ walked right in front of me and stopped.  I had to stop right there in my tracks.  Then I had that same thought or feeling again to not step all the way down onto my left foot.  I automatically stepped onto the heel of my left foot as I patiently waited for Copper to move out of my way.  He was slowly developing cataracts and his vision had become very poor.  Sometimes he would actually walk into things now like car doors, the tow hitch on the back of my truck, legs of my coffee table, etc.  Today he just stepped right in front of me and stopped.  I waited for him to move but he didn’t.  I was still thinking about breakfast and trying to decide if I should cook my eggs over easy or scrambled.  

I had that  “ thought “  or “ feeling”  again.  As I was waiting for Copper to move out of my way, I decided to look down at my left foot.   I lifted my left foot up and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a piece of wood stuck to the bottom of my rubber boot.  As I grabbed it and pulled it, I was shocked to find that it was actually stuck to the sole of my rubber boot from a nail.  I had to pull kind of hard to get it out.  This wasn’t just a plain nail, it was long and old and very rusty.  I stood there holding this piece of wood with this nail in it in disbelief.  This could have been so bad.  The nail had gone through the sole of my rubber boot but stopped right before it would have pierced my foot.  I didn’t have even a mark on my skin.  Nothing.  After I put my boot back on, Copper moved out of my way and he followed me into the house.  

“ What had actually happened “, I wondered.  I could have so easily stepped down hard on my left foot and ended up with that terribly rusted nail through my entire foot.  “ What had made me hesitate?”.  I had a very gentle thought  “ prompting “ me to stop and my almost blind dog had walked right in front of me.  I had a lot to think about.  I was so thankful for these “ promptings”.  I wanted to be able to hear or feel this more strongly next time.