OldTroubador's blog post - Oklahoma Morning

I woke up to my alarm in a truck stop in Muskogee, OK. After a few minutes of trying to extend the night, the sleep mode of my alarm finally roused me. I stood and stretched out the stiffness of the early morn, found yesterday’s thermos of coffee and poured a cup. I sipped the cold brew while getting dressed and wiping the sleep from my eyes. I walked the four feet to my office to begin my day.
I filled in the header of my log book, sent the previous days’ log information to the main office and double checked the directions to where I was going. I had actually driven past my destination by forty miles, but that got me to the nearest truck stop. Feeling awake enough for a brief walk, I ambled inside to refill my thermos and mug with fresh hot coffee and to get a breakfast sandwich or two. The day started much like any other; it could have been Muskego, WI, Muskegon, MI, or Musconetcong, NJ as easily as Muskogee.
With the early morning routine finished, I fired up the big Detroit engine, pulled out of the parking lot and headed north on US69. Dawn was beginning to break over the Oklahoma plains to my right. The sky there was full of pastel sherbet colors – raspberry and orange, brightening where the Sun would peek over the horizon. A few high scattered clouds shone fire where the early light of day reflected off them. The sky overhead was pale grey, deepening to a dark blue velvet in the west where the light had not reached; it was as if that part of the sky did not want to acknowledge the coming day any more than I had half an hour earlier.
I missed the sun actually crossing the horizon, but saw it as it cleared a low rise in the east. It radiated a red orange light through the low clouds and haze in the distance, the first rays of morning kissing the plains and cattle fields. Light and shadow gave form to the hitherto featureless land, highlighting the undulating pastures. Trees, which heretofore had been darker areas in the shadows, took shape – they marked the boundaries of the fields and creekbeds. Live oaks stood alone or in small groups in the middle of the leas while willows and cottonwoods marked the watercourses.
As day touched the pastures, the cattle began their day too. Numerous breeds of beeves, red angus, black angus, angus-hereford crosses, charolais, and many others dotted the prairie. Moving in small groups, they began walking from their bedding areas to their grazing sites. Some stopped at tanks – man made ponds for watering cattle – to drink of the muddy water before breakfast. Some of the young calves cavorted - playing, running, jumping and bucking, the he-calves head-butting each other, practicing the fighting they would do later to establish dominance. And, like children everywhere, some of them were scolded by the cows, who were obviously cranky for having awakened at this hour. A head butt from mama, or a slap with the tail, and the calves would quiet down for a spell, before forgetting the punishment they had just received and continuing with their antics. Others nuzzled their mothers’ udders, hoping for a drink of milk before commencing their grazing. Some wishes were granted, others not; some of the calves were gentle in the asking, others, a bit more strident.
One thing different about the herds here as opposed to the herds down near my home place. The ranchers here do not employ donkeys with the cattle. Coyotes in Texas are a nuisance, harassing the cattle during the night, and sometimes daylight, hours. At birthing time, packs of them will roam, hoping to separate a calf from the herd, an easy meal. Donkeys hate coyotes with a passion and will chase them across the fields, attacking if they catch one, with hooves and teeth. These normally sedate, lazy and sad looking creatures turn into hellions when the coyotes come calling.
The birds of the area awakened also, in decidedly better humor than the four legged beasts walking the land. As my windows were down, I could hear meadowlarks and mockingbirds greet the coming day with their melodious voices. Red winged blackbirds called to each other from the tall grass. Swallows and swifts began their mosquito eating day while scissor tailed flycatchers used their extra-long tails to perform impossible aerobatics while chasing their meals through the air. A red tailed hawk sat majestically on a fence post, head erect, chest out, as it scanned the grasses for a small meal, ready to pounce, silent death from above.
As the sun rose higher, it shed its heavy red orange coat for a lighter one of yellow; this before donning the brassy colored garb it would wear during the hottest part of the day. The greens of the trees and short grass were a deep rich green, whilst the taller grass that stood brown during the day glowed golden in the early slanting rays. I passed a cornfield, the golden tassels glowing also over the green stalks, all looking rich and healthy. Patches of ground fog hung weakly in the air over slow moving creeks and stagnant ponds and tanks, the vapor suffusing the light even more.
I made my delivery as I should then a pick up across the street and headed back the way I came. The difference in a few hours time was almost startling. The sky had turned to brass in the heat of the late morning, almost copper in color as the sun baked the air and ground below it. The cattle had moved from the open pasture to the shade of the trees along the edges, or the few that stood sentinel in the middle. Some of the walking rib-eye steaks waded in the tanks to cool off, and to keep the worst of the biting flies off their skin. The young ones lay in the shade with their mamas, eyes closed as they napped; some watched the traffic pass on the highway. Hawks still kept their vigil for rodents that were foolish enough to rustle the grass while crows and buzzards flew along or glided on the thermal currents looking for their next offal meal. The smaller birds had, for the most part, retreated to the shade of the trees and scrub, except for the mockingbirds and scissor tails, who rose in waves to attack and chase off the larger birds, harassing them until the predators were away from the nesting sites. The attackers then retreated, only to be replaced by others, the harassment continuing for the large birds until they passed out of sight.
It was a morning, a day like hundreds of others, yet still special to a driver who, while cynical in his dealings with the purported ‘custodians’ of this land, was not jaded at all to the wonders of the land through which he drove.