Respect others' choices

Many times in the evening, I like to make a cup of coffee and just watch the sun set. So the other evening I was sipping my Sulawesi coffee and watching the sun slowly sink. The steers were grazing so I was watching them graze. You could hear them get a grip on the grass with their tongues and hear the grass get torn off. Cows don't have upper teeth, only lowers, so they can't bite the grass off. They pull it off. Anyway I was watching them graze, and all of them were grazing in a different place and on different types of greenery. They like fresh grass that has just come up or grown because it's more tender and juicy.

But I've also watched them eat the blossoms off of thistle. The leaves have stickers, so it's just the blossoms they eat. Also we have a kind of sticker bush or weed, and the steers will eat the seed pods off them. Never the stems or leaves where they are stickery. They seem to like the seed on top of weeds. Then some steers really like the grain we buy at the feed store and others just don't care for it. We have one black one right now that seems to not care at all for the grain we are feeding them. The next batch of grain, we will add molasses and see what he does then!

When we first put the steers out on green pasture, they just want anything green. So for the first few days they eat anything green. But as the summer wears on, they seem to get picky. It has to be a certain grass, and it has to be green and not too tall. If the grass is tall, they eat the seed at the top and leave the rest. The thing is, they are all steers and even look a lot alike, and yet all are different. They are simply different, so we have five different steers with different traits and actions.

We got a gift certificate to an ice cream shop in Cape Girardeau well over a year ago, but because of COVID, we never used it. A month ago or so, Marge and I picked an odd time when most people wouldn't be there and went for some sweets. There was no one there but us. They have probably 30 or more different flavors of ice cream and probably 30 or 40 different toppings. Way too many choices for us to figure out. So I pick straight vanilla because of my diabetes and headed to the toppings. I wanted to try the gummy worms so I got a few of them. I also got peanuts. Love peanuts. And right there in the front were Heath chunks and back of it were Butterfinger chunks. I got some of both. Then I topped it off with caramel because no one seems to have butterscotch anymore. The thing was, Marge's didn't look anything like mine. She loves chocolate so she had them top it with black goo.

When we have steak, Marge tries to get it ready with some pink in the middle. We don't care for it when it's still oozing red, but we don't care for it when all the pink has been cooked out of it either. I like my toast light brown, but Marge likes hers barely tan. I like Miracle Whip on most of my sandwiches, but Marge likes butter on some of hers. I had a tomato and bacon sandwich this morning with one having butter and the other Miracle Whip. Liked the Miracle Whip better.

We are all different, so what's the big deal if you choose to do things differently than me? No big deal, unless we make it a big deal. If we try to influence someone to agree with us, then it seems like problems are generated. But if we try to push others to agree with us, then problems will arise and probably we'll get bullheaded and disagree just to disagree. Crazy.

We'd all be happier if we'd simply agree to disagree and go on living.