And this is not a pleasant story…..
As we made our daily rounds the other day, we could see the buzzards were eating something in the distance and I took it as an opportunity to teach the little kids about life and death. Well, to my surprise, they weren’t eating something dead, it was still alive, but barely.
I didn’t get photos of the whole scene, now I wish I had. Anyway, I digress, when we drove up, the buzzards flew away and a poor armadillo ran under the John Deere Gator we were riding in.
I jumped off to get a look at it and could see where it had been injured, more than likely it had been hit by a car with wounds to its armor on the side and its tail was broken looking. The kids wanted to see too so they got off to have a look with me.
Now I know vultures or buzzards have a purpose in this life, but eating something alive just didn’t sit well with me. Fortunately, there was a towel in the back of the gator for me to grab him with and show the kids up close and personal what an armadillo looks like and to also show them where the buzzards were already chewing on its ears and face.
I know, it was disgusting, but I knew I couldn’t let it suffer its injuries as well as being chewed on and I knew too it didn’t have long to live. The kids Dad had big round bales of hay already stacked, so we put the poor thing in between and behind bales to hide. I took a couple of photos then and off we went to check their cattle and Zack Brown the donkey.
I explained to both we would check on the dillo on our return trip and I expected to find him dead, but at least it wouldn’t be suffering any longer. They handled this news very well, in fact, I think it is a whole lot easier to understand and accept an animal’s death and is somewhat preparation of life’s ways, right? I think so, hope their parents didn’t mind the life lesson and unfortunately, these little kids have already lost a great-grandfather, a great-aunt and great-uncle as well as a pet to death.
And yes, when we checked on it again, it had died.
I haven’t heard differently, so I’ll take that as a good sign I’m doing an okay job allowing them to witness nature first hand while their parents work.
