Dear Peter

Mornings for me are the hardest…even with seven Australian Shepherds milling about the kitchen seems empty without him…I never realized how much space he occupied, his presence, his consciousness, his character.

On a morning like today, cool, dewy, impossibly green, he’d take his coffee into the man cave and turn on music: Dylan, Chopin, Creedence, the opera, Mozart, BB King…always one or two dogs lying nearby…then after jotting ideas or thoughts in a journal, he’d head off to fill bird feeders, be in the garden or go fix a fence, clean the coop, get on the bush hog, fill horse troughs, pull weeds…chop wood, fetch water.

And no morning would be complete without Peter’s Daily Morning Report around 11AM: number of honey bees, butterflies, wild bird count, problems associated with machinery/plumbing/electrical, any ticks found on dogs, and did I know where he left his phone?