The Pastor’s Piece
FCFI
August 13, 2023

We have a kill-deer that built a nest right on the edge of our driveway, about a foot in from where the gravel meets the grass. Everytime I mowed the yard, the mama would squawk and squawk and try to lead me away by playing the broken wing trick. I looked and looked for her nest, hoping that I wouldn’t mow over it and ruin it and break the chain of life in nature. Then one day, when I was looking out the window I saw her sitting on the nest and took note of its location. When I went out there she saw me coming and went about her antics to dissuade me from going near, but I found it anyway.
There were three rather large eggs in the nest that were the same color as the gravel in the driveway. I was surprised the eggs were so big. I’d say they were about the size of a chicken pullet egg. I looked up how long it takes a kill-deer egg to hatch and found it to be 21 to 28 days. So we kept an eye on the nest. It seemed late in the year for a bird to be hatching eggs, but maybe it was the second batch. The papa kill-deer was always nearby. It amazes me that a predator did not get to the nest and destroy it along with the eggs. We even had a couple of heavy storms pass through with high winds and almost six inches of rain. But every day, when the sun came up, she was there, sitting in the gravel on her nest.
After a few weeks, we found one baby bird had hatched, complete with feathers, and was sitting in the nest next to the two unhatched eggs. The next day that baby was gone. The day after that, another egg hatched. The day after that, that new baby bird was also gone. We checked, and found out that baby kill-deers can walk away from the nest almost immediately after they are hatched. After that, mama never came back to the nest and the third egg is still there.
While all this bird activity was taking place on our driveway, I was at church one night for a meeting. The meeting got over at about 7:30 and I locked up and was on my way home when I remembered that I forgot to shut off the coffee pot. So, I turned around and went back. When I arrived a rabbit came bounding down the steps in front of me, almost tripping me up. When I ran up the stairs to the front door, there was a whole family of baby rabbits congregating around our flagpole. It’s landscaped really nice so I can see why they would meet there. When they saw me, they all just kind of froze and sat there, stunned – all five of them – and stared at me for a couple of seconds. They were all in a circle facing each other – kind of like the way we sit around the round tables and converse with each other inside. I reached for my phone to get a family picture but before I could snap it, they scattered. I guess they like being at church as much as we do.

On another note, we have quite a few jalapeno peppers in our garden so my wife decided to make jalapeno poppers which are the peppers hollowed out and stuffed with a mixture of cheese, spices, and other delectable delicacies – and then wrapped in bacon and either deep fried or baked in the oven. She had a whole tray of them ready to go in the fridge. Well, I was hungry and looking for a snack and she wasn’t home at the time so I thought I could probably steal one and she wouldn’t notice. So that’s what I did. I was surprised that the poppers had almost no flavor whatsoever. I was sure she would not want to share them with anybody since she is a really, really good cook and these weren’t that good. I knew I had to tell her.
Later that day, after she arrived home, I told her I had snitched one of the jalapeno poppers and they weren’t very good. “What?” she said in disbelief: “You ate one of the poppers?” And she went on and on about how she couldn’t believe I’d eaten one. Finally, I said, “It’s only one popper. If I hadn’t told you, you never would have even missed it.”
That’s when she said, “They weren’t cooked yet. You ate raw bacon. No wonder it didn’t have any taste.”
Oh man, when she said that I immediately had a stomach ache and I began to imagine my gut cramping up and me puking my brains out for the next three days. I’ve had food poisoning before and it’s horrible. So I braced myself for the worst. But nothing happened. Then I googled “What happens if you eat raw bacon.” I should not have done that. Let me just say, if this column suddenly ceases to exist, you know the bacon got the best of me. Actually I feel good right now and it’s been more than a few days and I think I’m past the window of getting sick – or worse. However, in my defense, sometimes we use real bacon and sometimes we buy that precooked bacon, which you can eat right out of the fridge. So at least, I’m not completely losing my mind. (That’s what I keep telling myself anyway).
In Genesis 9:3 God says to Noah after the flood: “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.” And I say, just make sure it’s cooked first.
(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).