I can stand at the top of the pasture and call, "RASPBERRY," and she will come running. She will run into her stall and stand dancing for her bucket of grain. If the grain is too slow to arrive she will "back up!" just in case I maybe now want her to anticipate my command. If she arrives and her stall is closed she will just move into the goat's stall. Or stand at the barn gate and wag her fuzzy ears and toss around her large red face, her eyes up and full of notice.

The energy at the farm is as different from morning to evening as it is in any home. For this reason, my partner Linda and I switch off on the weekends. We take evening chores on Saturday and Sunday. Last night we were there about 20 minutes before sun down. I stood in the paddock. The sound of the children laughing turned my head. And I gasped.

They were swinging on baling twine tied from the barn rafters. Standing on the top of huge round bales and swinging from one to the next. Their shadows caught and lifted along behind them in exquisite detail and almost perfectly life sized, backed by the second tier of huge round hay bales. The bales, themselves, golden. The sun fills that dark barn interior, maybe for only those 15 minutes on these autumn afternoons. I can't tell you exactly about this light. But I will see it in my mind forever. So vivid ethereal and glowing, the children's shadows as alive as Pan's. And the scene framed by the rectangular stalls. The goats and cows eating below as the children floated above.