Morning chores begin with letting Bowie out of the big barn.  The sun is on the verge of rising at that point, and I need to be careful about slipping on the veneer of ice that coats the driveway to the barnyard; but Bowie has no such worries.

She’s out the door like a cannon ball, racing all the way to the upper pasture in hot pursuit of any deer that might still be lingering about.  Only after she’s completed her first  morning chore is she ready to return to the barn, and me.  While the sheep have their morning grain, we sit on the rock wall by the barn and have our “moment”.  Still panting from her morning surveillance, she sits as close as she can get and leans her entire weight into me.

We watch the town’s road crew plow and sand the dirt road our farm sits on, and the geese making their way across the slowly brightening sky.  Roscoe, our rooster, is making his presence known, and our old dog Sophie can be seen watching us from the upstairs bedroom window.   Every once in a while, Bowie turns to look at me and offer a quick kiss.

Then the flock lets us know that it’s time to get out of the barn and into the pasture, and so we rise up and get to work.