Sunrise on the Hill

I meet a couple of guys most Thursday mornings for coffee. It started at a local coffee shop several years ago, then moved to Marbucks a few years later. Late last summer one of the guys suggested we have coffee in my barn. He even offered his wife's baked items as a lure. I said sure and set up a couple of chairs and a makeshift table constructed from a very old saw horse and an 8' x 18" oak plank.

That first coffee in the barn was accompanied by a pretty amazing sunrise. So we opened all four large barn doors and took in the sights and smells of an Indiana summer morning in the country. We continued meeting there until both darkness and chill put a damper on things.

Well yesterday I suggested that we resume coffees in the barn this morning. I brewed the coffee and placed it in a large thermos and found a few mugs. When I walked out the back door I was awestruck looking out across the back pasture from our back porch. The warm golden sun was casting long shadows across the lawn and pasture, and a patchy fog was moving across the ground. It was sun-drenched and radiated that golden color.

I hiked up the hill leading to the barn and rolled open the large barn doors, which startled the Red Tailed Hawk that perches daily on the ridge of the barn. The breeze blew through the old oak timbers and captured the smell of hay and sweet grass. With the barn swallows darting through and the bright sun peeking between the cracks of the barn siding, coffees resumed on the Hill.

I don't know what your ideal Indiana is, but this is mine.