A midnight thunderstorm has its prelude an hour before arrival: a soft thud of feet from Becky, our English shepherd stockdog, on the front door signals thunder at a distance so remote as to disturb only her sleep. I trudge downstairs and put her on the back porch before returning to bed.

After the storm subsides, a steadier wind comes rattling down our small valley and shakes the windows. A cold front has arrived. Most of the night will pass before it manages to crowd out the warmth of the previous day.

Later, a more distant sound awakens me, the cattle cavorting and kicking up their heels in the hill pasture. The ruckus eventually awakens Teddy, too. An Aussie pup who typically prizes his sleep over our general welfare, he moves to the stone wall behind the house and begins a sporadic solo of barks. A few minutes pass and the cattle move on, and Teddy returns to his slumber. I get up and let Becky off the back porch.

Three in the morning and the sound of short, high-pitched yapping informs me that the dogs are on the trail of a small varmint. The barking follows its target in a rapid serpentine trail, first near the barn, then through the orchard, and finally, dear god, just beyond the bedroom window. Apparently cornered, the quarry resorts to its most effective defense: the acrid smell of the skunk lingers until long after sunrise. I return to my sleep.

Near five o’clock, the rhythms of morning begin to edge out those of the night. I’m reminded that we forgot to close the coop last evening when one of our large Speckled Sussex roosters uses his improvised perch in the grapevines beyond the stone wall to challenge a sun that won’t arrive for another couple of hours.

Piglets moved and enjoying their new home

My brain slips unbidden into wakefulness. In squawky images it starts to review the tasks of the day ahead: moving piglets to a new paddock away from their mom, shifting electric fence for the cattle to a new stretch of spring grass. Cleaning the gutters on the house and outbuildings, collecting for compost winter’s leftovers from the hay rings in the pastures.

Clearly, the time for rest is at an end. Coffee is to be ground and brewed, to-do lists to be finalized, and animals to be fed. The night disappears into the west. The new day is showing in the east over the ridge.

I get out of bed.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Reading this weekend: The Edge of Extinction: travels with enduring peoples in vanishing lands by Jules Pretty. One of the better works I have read this year. The author focuses on the collapse of traditional communities and their ties to the land. 

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