The sun mounted up into the sky, and shone down with all it's brilliance, as golden glows of it's light beams forced its way through the trees. I sat under a red wood tree facing the pond. Birds whistled in the mahogany tree to my left, and the lazy brook that fed the pond, babbled joyfully.

There was a kind of restlessness in me, a bit worried that I had left the main road that I had been jogging on, to come over to this beautiful meadow.  I cupped my hand across my forehead, shading my eyes as I looked out across the vast sweep of the prairie. Wild daffodil and spanish needles interweaves between lush green grass and occasional juniper trees.A squirrell chattered angrily in the thicket to my left, and a slight wind carressed the wild daffodil and spanish needles.

With the pleasant smell of wild flowers, and the wind soothing my cheeks, my mind became relaxed. I must have dozed off then, because I woke up with a start. I also noticed somthing else, the birds were deathly quiet. The atmosphere was still, only the noise from the stream which now seemed hollow, serene, and unnerving. Suddenly, a twig snapped in the thicket on the far side of the pond. Crouching behind the red wood tree, I cranned my neck to see who or what was comming. There was no sound, one could almost hear a pin drop. A loon's head broke the surface of the pond, as it sucked in gulps of air, and then it ducked underneath. I waited patiently, for what seemed like an eternity, there was no other sound. My eyes were alert  for the slightest movement, my ears tilted to the slightest sound. There was a loud snort, and then I knew what it was.

A huge brindled bull, with the sharpest horns, pawing the ground, getting ready to charge. Ears pricked, eyes wild, it took one step, then another...and another. Without second thought, I grabbed unto a limb and scuttled up the red wood  tree, but the limb broke, and I fell on the back of the charging bull. Frightened, it ran, jumped, kicked, and bucked, with me hanging on for dear life. Of a sudden, a barbed wire fence loomed in front of us, the bull stopped sharply, and the last thing I remembered was been thrown through the air. I woke up with a head ache and a few bruises. That was my wildest ride yet. 

 My name is Gary Gordon, author of The Values Pursued Life at www.amazon.com .