Mostly it was a petting zoo of sundry animals we loved dearly. Sheep with their guardian donkey, dogs cats, rabbits, chickens, geese, guineas, turtles, hamsters and whatever else wandered along.

The place was fenced and gated and hot-wired within an inch of its life as the animals spent all day every day figuring how to get out. The driveway gate was hot-wired too so if somebody came over you had to quick turn off the electric charger before they touched it. Everybody around knew not to touch the gate.

One day a stranger drove up and headed into the driveway, I hollered at him to wait and went to meet him.

He said he was the pastor of a local church and he'd noticed our menagerie out back and wanted to know if he could borrow some of our animals for a Christmas performance he wanted to stage for their parishioners. Very strange I thought.

He came in and met the zoo, I agreed to loan him some sheep and the donkey, we chatted. The next day he showed up with a horse trailer loaded them up and drove away.

Several days later he returned with our animals hale and hearty, backed into the driveway, and remanded them back to the pasture. He said the manger Christmas play was a big hit with the church and the kids loved it.

I'd never heard of his church, never knew his name, and never saw him again. It made me feel like a star though to provide such a pleasure to people with just a few sheep and a donkey :)