Nana's Animals: How Animals Enriched My Life

By Deb Sue Hamby

You will laugh and cry as you read this 50+ year snapshot of time in Deb Sue’s life where she shares the joys and sorrows from her youth through adulthood of working with animals. Each experience, from the innocent and inexperienced costly mistakes of youth to the special joys and lessons of adulthood, yielded spiritual dividends that formed who she is today. Nana’s Animals is a collection of short stories of a rural American farm girl’s life-long experience with animals. Many of the stories were rescues and the rest, were animal experiences from farm life through adulthood, and the invaluable faith-building spiritual lessons these experiences afforded her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664228733

Deb Sue Hamby

Deb Sue Hamby shares her life-long experiences raising and rescuing not only farm animals, but wild animals as well. Her life experiences in rural America, her faith, education, including her love of animals, has given her a unique and delightful style for story telling about her life with animals and the spiritual lessons they taught her.

Book preview

~ The Origin of Animals & Our Responsibility to Them ~

So girls, have you ever really thought about how animals came to be? Did you know there are over 8.7 million species on this great earth? How is it that there are so many species with more being discovered all the time? It is mind-blowing to even imagine! As science and scientific techniques continue to improve, more species are being discovered. God put them all out there, and God gave mankind an inquisitive mind. I personally think this is so exciting. The following scriptures from Genesis are the ones I learned as a child that tell how animals and man came to be in the beginning. As are all scriptures quoted herein, they are from one or the other of my two favorite books, The Living Bible Paraphrased (Copyright 1971) and God’s Promises for Life by Charles Stanley.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth every kind of animal - cattle and reptiles and wildlife of every kind. And so it was. God made all sorts of animals and cattle and reptiles. And God was pleased with what he had done (Genesis 1:24).

After He created animals, then God said, Let us make a man - someone like ourselves, to be the master of all life upon the earth and in the skies and in the seas. And God blessed them and told them, Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; you are masters of the fish and birds and all the animals. Then God looked over all that he had made, and it was excellent in every way (Genesis 1:26, 28, 31).

"…excellent in every way." Not mediocre or so-so, but excellent! It is truly clear how special the animals God created are to Him. But even more amazing to me is knowing that without a doubt, God’s love for his people is even greater than his love for his precious animals. How special we must be to Him! Isn’t that awesome to think about? I just love knowing this and hope you girls will think about it and maybe find that you feel similarly.

I cannot tell you how many times these truths have helped me through the rough spots in my life. Sometimes things happen in life that can make us feel like we do not matter or causes us to question our value as a person. Please believe me when I tell you how incredibly special and precious you are to God, to me and Papa, to your parents, and to so many others.

This is one of my favorite scriptures because it tells us how valuable we are to our Creator. So my counsel is: Don’t worry about things - food, drink, and clothes. For you already have life and a body - and they are far more important than what to eat and wear. Look at the birds! They don’t worry about what to eat - they don’t need to sow or reap or store up food - for your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are (Matthew 6:25).

I think it is interesting that God made the animals first, and then he made man to take care of all the animals. I love it that He looked at what He had made and called it …excellent in every way. That means you are excellent as well as all the animals. I am so proud as I watch you girls love and care for your animals.

I had to laugh one afternoon on a Saturday when I was working on this project. I was sitting at the computer upstairs in the office when something outside the window caught my attention as it moved wildly on the left side of my monitor. There on the screen covering the window was a young female sparrow peering in and cheeping at me. It must have been the offspring of one of the last batches of sparrows to have a family that summer. She looked like she was looking directly at me, begging to come in. I literally laughed out loud and whispered a quick thanks to the Lord. It felt like it was His seal of approval for writing this book.

I have a super-special place in my heart for sparrows for two reasons: one being the scriptures noted above that talk about sparrows; plus, you guessed it, I had a special pet sparrow named Tweetie that you will discover in the pages ahead. Enjoy ladies. Your Nana loves and adores you!

~ My Life in Baker, Oregon ~

Our home in Baker was located at 1445 14th Street and is the only home I remember prior to moving to the farm at Haines. The Baker home was an entire city block which was pretty large. We moved there when I was two. I have no memory of the prior house our family lived in on 17th Street where the three of us were brought when we were born. Both of my brothers, Rick and Joe, have special memories from when we lived on 17th Street. One was the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. Rick and Joe talk about how I was so tiny that my crib for a time was the top drawer of my parents’ dresser. The concept of that is so funny to me! Mom later told me that I arrived two months early and weighed only 5 lbs. 4 oz.

The place on 14th Street was basically a mini farm. It was not large enough to make a living but enabled my parents to raise my brothers and me on a farm with lots of animals. I lived there from age two until age nine.

Many years ago, the place my parents sold on 14th Street was subdivided and sold as smaller parcels, so it is hard to recognize it whenever we go by and I see it for old time’s sake. The house is still there, but the beautiful old barn and outbuildings are gone. Papa and I drive by every few years so I can reminisce on the good old days. He never seems to tire of my stories even though he has heard them many times. It is so special to remember the good times in life.

The stories you are going to read are about the animals I remember as a child beginning in Baker, Oregon, then Haines, Oregon, then through adulthood in Pendleton, Oregon. The first story is about Teeny, probably the entire family’s most beloved cat. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.

~ Teeny ~

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One day when I got home from school, my mom told me she had something to show me. I don’t know exactly what grade I was in, but it had to be somewhere between 1st through 4th grade because it was when I lived in Baker, sometime in the early-to-mid 60s.

Mom was holding a towel, cradling something much like she was holding a baby. I had no idea what I was about to see, but it was ghastly at first glance. I could hardly keep looking it was so bad.

Wrapped in the towel was a tiny gray kitten. She had beautiful yellowish-amber eyes, was very petite, and looked extremely sick. Mom slowly opened the towel. As my eyes moved down her body, the soft gray fur became tinted with pink, then matted with fresh blood, and then there was no fur at all but raw, bloody skin from the hip section on down. Her back legs were almost entirely devoid of fur. My heart was broken for this poor little feline.

Mom told me that she was driving home when she spotted an injured animal on the side of the road. It was slowly dragging its severely injured body through the dirt headed to who knows where. She immediately pulled over to see what she could do to help this little creature. Mom gently held her on her lap as she drove to our family’s vet clinic. The vet’s prognosis for this poor little cat’s survival was grim. He estimated that she was less than a year old and had most likely been hit by a car but not run over, thankfully. He thought she probably was pinched by the tire that literally ripped much of the skin off her lower extremities. This adorable kitten was so little that Mom named her Teeny and set about nursing her back to health.

Once Teeny began to feel a little better, she would drag herself around for what seemed like weeks. But little by little, her wounds began to heal, and eventually the fur grew back until she regained the full use of her back legs. We never would have known she had sustained such horrific injuries.

Teeny was such a great companion and friend to me. Whenever I was outside, she was not far behind or she was on my shoulder accompanying me wherever I went. I did not usually let her hitchhike on my shoulder in the summer unless I had a fairly thick shirt on because in her happiness of being on my shoulder, she would do what my parents called making bread where she would move her paws open and closed, purring constantly and affectionately digging into my flesh. When she did accompany me on my shoulder, she would often lick inside my ear with her raspy tongue, all the while purring softly. It would make me giggle uncontrollably and send goosebumps up my arms!

She was adorable and was always happy to see me and hang out. She was such a loving, and kind little kitty, but she loved to hunt birds. That is where we had our problems until I realized that the Lord put that instinct in all cats. I later felt bad, and still do but I spanked her tiny bottom gently while scolding her for killing birds a couple of times. She never held it against me, of that I am sure; and I am so very thankful.

One day I was sitting on the back steps of our house in Baker when she came walking up the sidewalk toward me with a Meadow Lark in her mouth. I could hear her muffled mews as she carried this pretty good-sized bird in her mouth. It was still alive, so I took it out of her mouth, gave her a good scolding, placed it in a shoebox, and prayed for its recovery. My prayers were not answered. The next morning, I checked on him, and he was dead. No! I wanted God to heal him, but it was not to be, so Teeny and I gave it a funeral, and life with dear Teeny, my Bird Warrior, continued.

Another time in Baker, I do not recall the exact circumstance, we had a female sparrow in a cage. We were always rescuing animals, especially Mom, so it was not anything out of the ordinary to have orphaned and/or injured animals at our place. Mom had a heart as big as the outdoors! It was spring, and she had suggested that I take the bird outside for some fresh air. I recall being outside kneeling near the cage, watching the sparrow on the swing inside the cage. At some point, I remember feeling Teeny rubbing against me. Just about the time I noticed her noticing the sparrow. She stuck her paw in between the bars of the cage and with one swat of her paw, she decapitated that poor little bird! I saw that sparrow’s head come flying off, bounce off the side of the cage, and come to rest on the newspaper lining the bottom of the cage, its body already lying nearby.