Ominous Morning

It was harder than normal to wake up this morning. I don't know why, but all I wanted to do was wrap myself up tight in my covers, close my eyes, and pretend (even for just a moment) that the only thing in existence was me, my bed, and the warm dog beside me. A moment was all I got before the crows of my roosters began to echo up through my bedroom window. They really are the best kind of alarm clock.

Outside, the morning felt somewhat ominous, like the calm before a storm. The sun rose like it sets, a bright coppery orb on the horizon. My first thoughts was an old wives tale that my grandpa told me when I was young, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning." That's the way it felt, anyhow. Down on the edge of the woods I could hear the gobblers making a big fuss over something. The way my roosters were carrying on too, I thought maybe it was just a competition between the big birds. But then I found the chickens staying close to the coop, something that is very unlike them once I open up the gate. As a matter of fact, they all took roost inside the cage. That's when I wondered if it wasn't so much a competition as the turkeys warning them of impending danger, like a prowler in the woods. Like I said, ominous.

Then all of a sudden, just like that, everything was normal. The sun escaped it's cloudy shroud and shone with it's usual morning brightness, and the chickens hopped down and went on their merry way of foraging. Strange she is. Mother Nature that is. The peeps, only a couple days hatched, peeked out through momma hen's wings and peeped earnestly. I looked up to see a flock of migrating water fowl over head; not Canada geese this morning, something else that flew too high to be identified without my trusty field goggles. Still, rain is on it's way. I'm sure of it.