A sense of dread struck me this morning as I awoke to Fred’s crowing at sunrise. It was about 7:30 and, just like a good alarm clock does, he kept it up for almost exactly 15 minutes before quieting back down again.

It’s actually not as annoying as I thought it would be having a rooster crowing each morning. I kind of like it, really. And I am thankful that the other birds are relatively quiet.

The pheasant make an interesting sound off and on during the day, but never too early and rarely at night.

The Muscovy ducks we raise are known as being “quackless” which is partly why we chose them. Also because they are DELICIOUS.

The quail actually do make quite a bit of noise but it’s not overly loud or annoying at all.

Their chitters and chirps are kind of like the house sparrows outside the bay window. They are rather soothing in the background of my day-to-day life here.

But then there’s Fred and the dread he invoked in me this morning.

I should mention here that for some reason Barney doesn’t crow early in the morning. He leaves that job to Fred and only crows in the afternoons or if the pups start up with their group howling to get my attention.

Speaking of the pups, they, too, are now my built in alarm clocks. Every morning for the last few weeks, between 8 and 8:30, just like clockwork, whichever pups are sleeping out in the kennels start up in unison with their morning “awrooooo!” to let me know that it’s time to trade the inside pups for the outside pups. That triggers the inside pups to join in and for about 30 seconds or so it’s an ear-piercing chorus of husky howls.

It’s not so bad because it’s over pretty quickly and it usually works for me because that’s about the time I’m ready to go deal with them.

Until tonight, that is! That’s when everything will change and why I felt a sense of dread.

It’s Daylight savings time again so we’ll be changing our clocks back an hour which means Fred will start crowing at 6:30 and the pups will start howling at 7. I wouldn’t mind so much except we live with neighbors nearby and I don’t want to annoy them that early. These critters can’t possibly be expected to play along with our weird human tradition of moving the clocks forward and back twice a year and there’s really nothing I can do about the situation.

I can’t lock Fred up in a sound proof box overnight (or can I? Hmm…) and I can’t possibly let all 12 huskies sleep in every night (no, definitely can’t do that).

Just another reason why we need 40 acres to spread out on! Preferably with no neighbors within miles. 🙂