Life on the Farm: Morning Routine

For the past few months, ever since a fox and/or bobcat have been lurking around the neighborhood killing chickens and turkeys, we have been very religious about closing in all our animals at night. This means, of course, that we don't go to movies, dinner or friends' houses without a plan on getting home before full dusk hits. The birds are pretty much blind in the dark, so if we don't get them in their houses before we can still see our hands in front of our faces, then they will panic when we try to herd them around. So we go out to the pasture around 8:45-9:00pm. This can get wearisome to those of us who made theatre their career and sometimes have to be out before and after dark. But, we do what we must to keep our birds safe.

Each morning Barry goes to let everyone out any time between 7:30 and 9:00 am (we don't let them out earlier because we try to avoid prime dawn hawk-time). As each group of birds is freed from their nightly confinement, they cavort around the field and zero in on Barry, now ready to feed and water them for breakfast. This morning I went out with him to get pictures of the event. Someday I want to videotape it, but until then I hope the photos help give you the same feeling of controlled, excited chaos that I see every morning.