Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Rescue and Release





Giant toad stuck in decking in Norfolk, England!  Of course, they rescued it!  You may read about it just here.  I love this story!




Recently on a "Sea Rescue" episode from TV, we watched as TWENTY manatees were rescued in Florida. These large gentle creatures had managed to swim into big water pipes and had gotten stuck.  The rescuers were able, with great effort , to back them up, so to speak, and get them out. They had to get heavy digging equipment to release some of them. It was wonderful to see them swimming into the open water.  On the same show, they rescued two sea turtles on the same day,  One had been hit by a boat and his flipper was damaged.  (The flipper had to be partially removed. Also, his shell was cracked and some kind of material was put upon it to harden it, the same kind used on the legs of horses, apparently.)  The other sea turtle had a very serious skin disease and they had to coat it in antibiotics and put it in very clean water and hope for the best. It took over 6 months for the turtles to heal. (They made a joke about the slowness of turtles!) Hey, there was nothing slow about them when they were RELEASED into the open water! 

  The sight of those creatures swimming rapidly away into the open sea fills me with an emotion that I find hard to describe.   Now, you know this reminds me of the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption"!  I have written of it before and I hope you have seen it.
I am also thinking of a hymn, do you know it? It is "Oh Zion, Haste" and has this: "Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, Tidings of Jesus, redemption and release."
Oh, I looked at a great many videos of this song for you! And I finally found one that not only has good singing but it also shows the words! The lyrics are by Mary Thomson. She was born in England in 1834 but she and her husband came to America in 1881 and she wrote many poems and hymns in her lifetime.  Mary Thomson said she mostly wrote this one in 1868.  She had a long life, passing away in 1923 in Philadelphia.  













22 comments:

  1. Dear Kay, seeing something like this - turtles swimming away, horses running for the sheer joy of it, or dogs frolicking on a field - nearly moves me to tears, animals enjoying their life the way the should.
    During the only US vacation I have been on so far (Florida, 1999), I saw a manatee in the wild. We were standing on a pier looking out across the water, when a manatee was swimming around. It took no notice of us but clearly had a purpose and we soon saw what: It went right up to one of the pier's wooden poles and scratched its back with obvious pleasure :-)

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    1. You are so lucky to have seen a manatee! I have never seen one! And I love the story of you seeing it scratch its back!
      I really do admire people who work so hard to help animals. I am reminded of our friends in England, Henry and Sarah. I hope they read this!

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  2. Such a lovely hymn! It's always a joy to see creatures set free, whether it's animals caught by human-made items they don't understand, or people set free to live and love as the Good Lord intended!

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    1. It is a beautiful hymn, I wish I had written it! "Set free to live and love", you always know exactly what I am thinking but can't put into words!

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  3. Clearly there are different kinds of redemption and release! I love reading about or seeing animals rescued and set free. And what a beautiful hymn. Thank you for finding it for us.

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    1. Thank you. I am glad you liked the hymn too.

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  4. Make me thing of all God's creatures great and small ! We are thankful for them all.

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    1. Yes, I was also reminded of "All Creatures Great and Small" but I thought you might not want me to keep putting hymns on just one post! LOL!

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  5. Kay ,I had a little toad rescue here my very self. A toad was hanging , barely inside the pond...I was afraid it might drown so I took a net a flipped him into the flower bed. I do not touch them but like having them around here. Blessings, xoxo, Susie

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    1. Good for you, Susie! It is always a good thing to try to save life, as much as we can! Bless you, sweet friend! xx

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    1. Thank you! You must know this hymn, don't you?

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  7. A day of joy as so many creatures were saved. This was a delightfully uplifting post.

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    1. Thank you very much! I never can express exactly what I mean so I am glad you understand me!

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  8. I love stories about rescuing animals.

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  9. I entered a photo last year of a tree toad and won 3rd place, so even though I had a toad jump on my leg when I was watering the flowers and I screamed bloody murder..I do love them! Shaw Shank is one of my fav movies but also because it was filmed here! The Mansfield Reformatory is a fun place to tour and I even went on an all night ghost hunt there. You get to see where the movie was filmed and all the history is amazing. I know lots of folks that were hired as extras in the movie too so that makes it fun to watch! I think it's wonderful when animals can be rescued and put back into nature. Brings us all closer in this world when we can watch out for each other!

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    1. Yes! I remember that you won 3rd place with that photo! And I also remember you telling me about the prison was near you, where they filmed Shawshank! I love that! And how fun it must be to recognize the extras in the movie!! And you must admit, it is a great movie!!
      We all need to watch out for each other, it's the only way. xx

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  10. What an unusual looking, white toad. It is heart-warming to see and hear about unique animal rescues. Our son belongs to a society which does this, and occasionally gets called out for native animals.

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    1. I have written of an animal rescue center near us, it is at the base of Arabia Mountain. It is called "AWARE"...Atlanta Wild Animal Rescue and they do amazing rescues!
      (And the photo is of a Cope's Grey Tree frog...it looks bumpy like a toad but it is a frog!)

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  11. I do love it when an animal rescue story ends well. One thing I enjoy about visiting the seal sanctaury each year is hearing how they rescued and released the seals. I'd like to watch them release a seal one day but I believe they do it all privately.

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    1. Hey! You should contact them and them you are a writer and you want to see the seal being released into the wild! It's worth a try! Let me know! I am giving you a SEAL of approval to do this. (HA).

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