Daybreak

It happens quite often. (And usually I am there to see it.) Only during the longest days of June does the sun make it up before I do and even then it is still low in the sky. This has nothing to do with any particular virtue and everything to do with being a dairy farmer and morning person. Dawn is the finest time of day and I like to see what it brings.

This day brought an exceptional one. (Despite the fact that I only got quick peek out the barn door). When we went to work the sky was clear as mountain water. (The grass was about that wet too.) Orion was wheeling overhead, bright as winter and almost as cold. It was exceedingly dark except for the starlight and about as quiet as it ever gets.

Then, about the time I was taking the milker off Mango to switch it onto Bubbles, a sharp, clear, golden light appeared toward the east. It made a bright band across the tree-lined horizon and seemed to unlock the colors from the night. Black sky changed magically to a liquid midnight blue, edged with silver and turquoise. The stars were like holes in dark paper, letting bright light shine through like tiny spotlights. The dead elm in the creek stretched skeletal branches toward the sun, as if warming fingers that were ever cold. It was breathtaking, (could have just been the cold, but I thought it was the sky).

I watched for a second then turned back to my job. Milking machines wait for no man (or woman) and cows have little patience with dreamers. By the time I stopped to look out again, the sun was all the way up, the sky was a cold white-blue and it was time to turn the cows outside and feed the pigs. (Which is a whole 'nother story, which you can read in the Farm Side this Friday if you are so inclined. ...and have a buck as the paper is still a pay site.)

It was a beautiful daybreak though, a nice side benefit to working where there is little to block the sky and the air is clear enough to let it shine through.