Mockingbird Magic

We had some high drama here last night, involving someone outside the family who said some things that caused much emotional uproar. Those words had nothing to do with the farm or the family directly so I won't detail them here.

However, there were tears and pain, not mine, but when it is your family sometimes they feel like they are yours, and no one slept very well.

At three AM I woke up, wide awake, trying to remember if I had turned the compressor that cools the milk on or not. The tanker picked up yesterday and it is always shut off while the washer cleans the milk tank. It is arguably my job to turn it back on every other day when we start to fill it up with fresh milk. Normally I make a point to think about what I am doing when I do it so that when I wake up at 3 AM I can say, yeah I turned it on and go back to sleep.

Yesterday I forgot to do that.

So, I got up, threw my barn boots on with my bathrobe and hiked to the barn. The moon turned the yards into a ragged chiaroscuro of light and dark, so bright it seemed as if you could see a faint tinge of green among the greys and blacks. There was the least hint of skunk on the air and it was almost as crisp and cold as fall, truly a beautiful night.

As I tugged the cold rubber of the boots on over my cold bare feet a faint sound came from the field. At first I thought it was a cricket. With the Thruway devoid of travelers there was silence except for that vague call. It came again, not a cricket...just ....something.....

Then suddenly the air filled with opulent sound as the pasture mockingbird (not to be confused with the house mockingbird) burst into gay and glorious song. His notes were round and full and fluent, the calls of all the other birds combined together, each more melodious than the one before.

I just stood there, soaking it all up, the breeze, the light, the magical song, even the distant skunk. There are people who have more fame and fortune than my most bedazzling moments could conjure, but I wonder how many of them get free midsummer serenades in a theater as beautiful as a late June night in the country. If I was counting blessings I would surely have run out of fingers and toes before I even got started. The hike to the barn, usually an onerous misery at night, was a treat indeed, not a mosquito to be had and that glimmering song trailing behind me like a train of stars.

The tank was on. River, who had twin bulls yesterday and was left in the barnyard to recover, was fine. When I went back to bed, the singer was still pouring out a sweet stream of secret music with no one to listen but him and me...and maybe mephitis mephites.