Summer Mornings

My old mare whickers when I turn on the lights. Her call drifts across the backyard and through the window screens. The rooster joins her in song. The ewes, who learned a long time ago to associate humans with food, add their baas. A Border collie whines and dances on the wood floor, clacking a cadence that goes faster and faster. On the back porch, the barn cats yowl, demanding their breakfast. And so begins the morning routine: walk the dogs, give hay and water to the rams and sheep hay, feed the horses, move the portable rooster coop, toss the rooster scratch grain, carry fresh water and grain to two hen houses, set out food for the cats, feed the dogs – stirring in canned food for the senior Border collie.