TIME CHANGE - HOME IN DARKNESS

Well the time has changed - I know they do this mainly for the kids who have to wait for buses standing in the dark - and Lord knows I don't want any child to get hurt - but MAN - this time change is so hard for me. It seems to take me weeks to get acclimated to it.

I wake up and think that I've overslept only to find that I have another hour I can sleep. Then the day seems to go soooo slow - and when 5:00 finally rolls around, it is already almost dark.

This causes another flashback to the farm. I worked in Knoxville then and my farm was in Townsend - about 30 miles one way - and when I would get off at 5:00 it would be after 6:00 p.m. when I would get home and it would be totally dark. I can remember going straight through the house - Mama would be getting supper on the table for us - and going out the back door, putting on my knee high rubber boots and heading for the barn - in the dark. I didn't even take a flashlight with me. The horses would be waiting for me at the gate and I would push through them, rubbing noses and necks and they would follow me into the "drive through" of the barn - in the dark. I would fill the buckets with oats and sweet feed - all in the dark - and as they ate I would run my hands over their bodies checking for any cuts, or swellings - all in the dark. I'd check their shoes to see if they were missing any or if any were loose - all in the dark. I'd climb up into the hay loft, fragrant with sweet odor of that year's hay and cut and divide the bales and throw it down to the horses - all in the dark. If there happened to be a full moon I'd have God's light to do my work by but most of the time it was all in the dark. And then lots of times I'd just sit, close my eyes and just listen - in the dark. The sounds I carry in my heart are of the crunching of the oats and hay, the wind blowing down the mountain, the occasional squeal if Champ got too close to Rocket's feed bucket. And then I would go to each horse, rubbing between their eyes, rubbing their ears, pulling their heads to my chest and we would stand for a moment, connected to each other by love - in the dark. Only another horse lover will understand that one of the sweetest smells in the world is a horse's breath after they have eaten oats and sweet feed - it is a rich, warm, sweet, grainy smell that cannot be matched. All in the dark.

Peace and pray for our country on this - our presidential election day.