It’s 6 a.m., long before sunrise, and I’m dressing in the dark, moving quietly so as not to wake Cindy. Downstairs, two of the three dogs sleep inside at night. Max stays indoors because he’ll bark at any and all random night noises if left outside. Our newest addition, Buster, a rat terrier, stays in a crate because he is still a puppy. With his keen ears, he is already scratching at his kennel by the time I switch on a light.

I open the front door and both dogs barrel out into the darkness. I follow and, stepping off the porch, all three of us relieve ourselves in the front yard, sharing a companionable silence. Because, it must be said, taking a whizz outside whenever and mostly wherever the urge strikes is one of the great joys of rural life.

I leave them to their morning rounds and go back inside to fix some coffee. Once made and poured, I settle in with my mug and read a couple of essays in The New Yorker. Bill McKibben has written a well-crafted piece on climate chaos. But, in typical fashion, he closes by burying the doom and gloom in a ridiculous bit of “here is what we can do.” A little like being on the Titanic, when, with the frigid North Atlantic lapping at your feet, the bartender says, “Boys, the drinks are on the house.” It may make you feel better, but it isn’t going to change the way the day ends.

Footsteps sound on the floor overhead, and I hear the window blind in the bedroom being raised. “He’s back!” Cindy calls down to me. “He” is a regal 10-point buck warily making his way across the upper pasture. I get to the kitchen window in time to see him crest the hill just as the sun comes up, heading southeast to northwest, as he has most mornings since late summer.

Of course, now it is hunting season, and his usual morning constitutional, if continued, will take him into the November gun sights of the misters Strickland and Scarborough, neighboring farmers who are both avid deer hunters. It doesn’t bother me, since I do plenty of butchering myself, but our dogs catch sight and their barks cause him to slow and reverse course. Good choice, sir. Enjoy the rest of your day. The guns stay silent.

I pour out some feed for the three dogs. Becky, our English shepherd sentinel, has made an appearance after a night patrolling the barnyard. Buster, true to his breed, is afflicted with early-morning ADD. He grabs a bite of kibble, runs off the porch to look at a leaf, runs back up the steps and takes another morsel, runs off the porch to look at some goose poop…. Meanwhile, Cindy or I must stand guard to keep the other dogs, who remain laser-focused on the untended bowl of chow even as they wolf down their own breakfast, from inhaling his rations.

A similar pattern repeats itself in the woods with the feeding of the six hogs. Each is worried that the other is going to get more food, even though I’ve placed it in six separate piles. In a rustic game akin to musical chairs, they individually circle from pile to pile, pausing long enough to displace another hog, who in turns moves to the next pile, where it displaces another hog, who…. And round and round they go, snatching quick bites on the run.

I finish my feeding chores, then spend some time shoveling out the manure and bedding from the livestock trailer before returning to the house for breakfast. Cindy and I chat over oatmeal about our individual and collective to-do lists. Agreeing that weighing the market lambs will require both of our attention, we finish our breakfast, then grab our coats and head out to the barn.

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Reading this weekend: The Diary of a Bookseller (Bythell). 

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