Liz has started a new thing and I think I like it. I am not sure we will be able to keep it up for long, but she has started getting up at three AM to bring the cows down from pasture and milk them really, really early. I have been going out between four and four thirty to help her, so that we are in the house by six. Then she can leave for college at seven. It isn’t even daylight yet when we get in. Today Ralph also got up and helped us, although we both wish he would get some rest. That is part of why she started doing it. He is just so tired out from trying to get crops in and she figured that he would feel better if he didn’t have to milk in the morning. He is a stubborn guy though, so I don’t know how far that is going to go. It is easy for me to get used to rising that early, as I did it for years at Hollenbeck’s. The extra daylight hours are wonderful for getting things done, such as writing in this blog.

It was kind of sweet coming to the house in the dark this morning, after I drove the cows back up the hill. The air still had the tang of night, cool, clean and sweet. A deep breath felt like a cold drink of water on a hot summer day. For a second I stood under the old cedar tree taking big breaths and reveling in it. The two roosters were having a crowing contest in the pear tree, even though the sun was no more than a faint promise on the horizon. At that time of day, the Thruway is about as quiet as it ever gets, so it was peaceful and pleasant. The only jarring note was the aroma of our local skunk. He met Liz on the bridge Wednesday morning when she was going out, but only hissed and waddled away. Must be a gentleman stinker.

A titmouse is chirping in the cedars by the door, a sure sign that, eighty-degree days to the contrary, fall is here. There are a number of winter birds coming into the yard even though I haven’t been filling the feeders. They are eating Japanese beetles out of the cannas and the seeds of the ornamental sunflowers and rudbeckia. Very heavy rains are predicted for this weekend and I am more than slightly concerned. There is still a lot of field corn and hay that we need to harvest and rain is no help to that effort.