  Notes from the farm... There were leaves falling from the trees by the time I returned to the farm that Autumn. It had been five years since I had last helped in the Dairy with the Holsteins, or fed the barn cats or even helped with the Maple-sugaring. I always enjoyed working out in the Maple forest collecting the sap from the buckets attached to the trees...dumping the watery contents into the 200-gallon tank as the mares Hannah and Estelle pulled the hitch through the trees. When we got to the Sugar House, the sap was drained into the evaporator, where the water was cooked off, leaving only the dense, amber maple syrup.
But, that was a late winter task. This was fall, and there were many jobs to complete before sundown. The cows needed their stalls mucked-out, and Macy, the Arabian, desperately needed a brushing and a good long run in the yard. Swingo, the family mutt, and I headed toward the barn and the incessant cluck-clucking of the chickens, who never seemed to be in their pen. As they wandered pecking at the ground, Swingo chased after them, herding them toward the coop. It wasn't the most glamorous work, but it needed doing.
It was rewarding in a physical and immediate way. After all these years, the chores felt somehow comforting...somehow defining things in black and white. On the farm, you do the things that need doing...or animals don't eat, get ill or worse. It's that simple. And in that simplicity, life makes a little more sense. 
