The Best Hour

The best hour of the day is the wolf-light hour, before the sun tops the edge of the Wasatch Mountains. In the valley below, the colors are still bruise-purple, blue and slate, except far to the west over the lake, where
gold glows and the shadows have already sharpened.

In late August, the temperature outdoors is still cool, the air still stirring in its sleep at the best hour. The grasshoppers have not begun their whirring in the tall grasses along the fence-lines. Magpies back for the autumn that waits behind August's blazing mask are still silent in the big cedar. The commuter train humming along the track on the other side of the gravel road behind the barn glides past with windows lit like an earhtbound UFO - bent heads of astronauts inside, seriously engaged with important matters.

You get your horse out and mosey down the gravel road. Once the train passes, unless a freight rumbles by, the only sounds are his hoofbeats deliberate and slow; he's still sleepy. The horses at the other barns may nicker, may only stare and widen their nostrils to take you in - they know you and know you usually pass by at the best hour. Some dogs that live rough in their owner's junk-strewn half-acre backyards may bark, but without conviction. They haven't had breakfast and their hearts aren't in making a commotion; they know you, too. The barks are apologetic: I have to do this, it's my job, you know.

Where gardens are, the road is damp from sprinklers and you can smell what they are growing. The slightly bitter tang of tomato plants, the green scent of cucumbers, runner beans, and peppers, the sweetness from ripe corn that needs picking. Whiff of goat, the very particular aroma of chickens. The fusty odor of old, wet wood from tumble-down sheds leaning lazily against nothing, soon to come down in winter winds. Across the tracks, fields of pumpkins and corn sparkle under showers from walking irrigators and the arcs of water catch the coming daylight. Near the road's end, as you walk under the echoing overpass, there may be cattle already in the farthest field, ready for autumn feeding; they don't notice you.

If you keep your eyes on the yards, the barns, the fields, the road and the train tracks, you can pretend you are in the country, in a place where farm ground is sacred ground and horses are respected philosophers. Don't look too far to the north - that's where the city of Ogden sits; at night, its eerie glow below the treeline snuffs out stars you would like to see. But that's just how it is.

Things are tolerable here, as long as you get up and get out during the best hour.