Table of Contents
Never, the saying goes, work with children or animals. What about children and animals? More specifically a baby and a yard full of farm animals?
That’s what happens every Christmas at the Seaside Chapel in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. The community builds a living nativity scene and city of Bethlehem, complete with Romans, Judeans, recreations of first century life – and, of course, a stable full of animals.
Except that, this year, not all of the animals were content with merely lowing.
Dec 3 drew 205 pilgrims, who bustled around the makeshift Bethlehem until the charcoal fire died down and ox and ass alike lay down their sweet heads. Then the police started knocking on doors.
No, it wasn’t soldiers looking to find out who had painted Romanes eunt domus on the walls. Instead, it was a pair of runaway calves.
What followed was a 16-hour chase down the streets of Carolina Beach, through the state park woods and neck-deep into the waters of the Cape Fear River.
The recovery would require a trailer, several two-way radios, a police drone, some four-wheelers, several panels of cattle fencing, a loop of rope, a pontoon boat and a party of 40 rescuers – including one park ranger who leaped into the river.
It was at this point that I found out that Cape Fear is a real place.
Meanwhile, the cows waded shoulder deep into the Cape Fear and started to flounder until a passing pontoon boat nudged them toward shore. A flat-bottom state park boat arrived, and an officer on board tried to lasso the cows from the deck. One exhausted beast’s eyes started rolling back in its head.
Then, seeing no other option, the park officer dove into the water and looped the struggling cows by hand. Slowly, the rangers pulled the repentant animals into their trailer, where a crowd applauded on the sand. Typing his chronicle, [owner Eric Field] offered thanks to above. “He loves even the smallest creatures,” he wrote, “including calves and you.”
The News & Observer
But this Christmas’ prodigal calves weren’t the first time the living nativity has run into a spot of bother. In 2020 (fittingly), it was far more Old Testament.
The storms that came through Sunday night into Monday morning nearly destroyed the living nativity and city of Bethlehem at Seaside Chapel that parishioners have been building since September.
“I walked out here Monday morning and saw everything and the devastation,” said Seaside Chapel Pastor Jerry Vess. “All the hard work and all the man hours that had gone into it all torn down. My heart really sunk.”
Since Monday, the parishioners and members of the community have helped rebuild what was destroyed.
“People just come together,” said Vess. “It’s an amazing thing, the community. A lot of people in the community have come out and helped. We’ve had people donate wood and donate money to help us get things back together. So, you know, with the Lord’s help…have helped us put it all together.”
WECT6
Those New York city slickers would no doubt look down their noses at the humble folks of Carolina Beach, but at least the calves weren’t biting anybody. In something out of an old Far Side cartoon, New York’s squirrels are turning full gangster.
Residents of a Queens neighborhood are dealing with a squirrely threat.
Denizens of the New York City borough’s Rego Park neighborhood say an aggressive squirrel has jumped on them and bitten them in the past several weeks, WCBS-TV reported Wednesday.
Micheline Frederick pointed to a bruise on her wrist where she said the squirrel landed on her and then sank its teeth into her fingers and hand.
“We’re wrestling in the snow and there’s blood everywhere and my fingers getting chewed and it won’t let go,” Frederick said. “Eventually, it just stopped and there I was a big bloody mess.”
Am I the only one picturing an old Goodies routine?
Two other neighbors told WCBS the squirrel had jumped on them, seemingly unprovoked.
“These squirrels are aggressively going after people,” Vinati Singh said.
It was also at this point that I found out that the cartoons lied to me, and squirrels don’t carry rabies.
Small rodents like squirrels rarely test positive for rabies and are not known to have transmitted it to humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Huffington Post
My whole life has been a lie.
Anyway, enjoy the sight of a dog and a seal competing to catch a ball.
