Each day, the land paints a picture for you, but the picture is never the same. Each field, each tree, each blackberry patch and each part of the land has its own meaning. The surface of the land might change with a new crop or a growth of briars and bushes, but it all stays the same. The heat of the sun might burn it, and the freeze might stun it, but the land remains firm and strong. Walking over a hill or down a land or a cow path or through a woods, you know each part, and it as familiar as your bed at night. You know each foot of the land like you know the cupboard in the kitchen. You know where the quail roost, where the squirrels scamper and where the foxes roam. You know the best ground for corn, the best creek flats and the best groves. You live with the land, walk it, plow it, mow it and can sit down on a rock and listen to its life. It has a life of its own because it never sleeps and never dies. It's like it's always making a meal for you. After a long day of forking hay in the hot sun, you can't really explain how good it feels to wash up and then sit on the cool back porch. The taste of the corn and the beans and the tomatoes and the meat and the milk and the biscuits and a sweet cobbler at the end gives you the strength to go on. Each day, the land paints a picture for you, but the picture is never the same as the colors change with the sun and the clouds and the seasons. It changes like it's a different meal, but it doesn't change. I have mixed feelings when I think about how hard farm life can be. And yet, I feel so free and easy in a way, whenever I stop for a moment and think of how it has a hold on me ... The feeling inside sort of just happens, and you can't say this did it or that did it. It's the many little things. It doesn't seem that taking the sweat-soaked harnesses off your tired, hot horses would be something that you would notice much. Opening a barn door for the sheep standing out in the cold rain, or throwing a few grains of corn to the chickens are small things, but these little things begin to add up in you, and you can begin to understand that you're important. You may not be real important like people who do great things that you read about in the newspaper, but you begin to feel that you're important to all the life around you ... When I start thinking about how our animals and crops and fields and woods and gardens sort of all fit together, then I get that good feeling inside and don't worry much about what will happen to me. Adapted from "Feed My Sheep" by Terry Cummins. Photos by Jeff and Meggan Haller.