A Thank-You to the Night Sky

I'm a farmer, and I'm usually up before the sun. Most people think that's the hard part of the job. To me it's the gift.

At four-thirty in the morning in October, the sky above our fields is enormous and full. I walk out to the barn with a thermos of coffee and Orion is right there over the silo, like an old neighbor. Sometimes there's a fox crossing the road. Sometimes the frost makes everything glitter under the yard light.

The cows don't care about any of this. They just want breakfast. But I always stop at the gate for a minute and look up.

My grandfather did the same thing. He said it was how he said good morning to the world before the world started asking things of him. I've found no better way to start a day.