Hello God, it's me, Mara

A friend sent a clipping (author and date unknown) on animal groups. You know, Lord, growing up on a farm/ranch, we knew animals belonged to interesting groups, but this clipping named a few more than we knew.

We had pigs but didn’t know that a group of them were a “drove.” We knew baby pigs were a “litter” or “piglets.”  We had a “flock” or a “brood” of chickens and that daily we’d gather a “clutch of eggs.”

We knew several fellows called “drovers,” the guys who’d move a “herd of cattle” or a “flock of sheep” in a certain direction.

We had hawks (they liked to catch and eat baby chicks!), but we did not know an assemblage of them is called a “kettle of hawks,”, or that rabbits were called a “down of hares.”

Spring and Fall we’d watch and listen to “skeins of geese” flying north (in spring) or south (in fall). We knew that a grouping of birds was called a “flock” of birds.

Friends had bees, called a “swarm,” a “colony” or even a “hive” of bees. We knew ants were called an “army of ants.”

We didn’t have fish in our creeks but we knew about a “school of fish.’  

A “murder of crows,” a “brace of ducks” or a “tribe of goats;” there are many more interesting creatures with equally interesting group names. Isn’t it interesting that in the beginning it was Adam who got to name them? We read in Genesis 2:19: “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”

Thank You, Lord, for ingenious assemblage/group names!    

                                                                        Love, Mara