Farming is a good and rich life, it is back-breaking and hard life, full of surprises, challenges, disappointments. The Gulley’s have an iconic milking parlor where the cows come in in shifts,get milked, and are replaced. It takes about 90 minutes for Ed or Carol to milk their dairy cows, and they have to do it twice a day, every day of the year.

The cows are calm and gentle, and the Gulley cows are treated like royalty. The milking parlor has heat and a bunch of the Gulley dogs usually come in to check things out. Ed talks to each cow, he knows each one and loves cows as much as he loves dogs.

A young hawk got into the chicken coop the other day and Ed talked to  him and calmed him down, and then was able to pick him up and set him free. I can hardly imagine that. Ed and Carol work very hard, every day, for most of the day. And the work on a farm is never over. Underscoring the farm – there are dogs, cows, Peacocks, a crippled hen named Matty who can’t walk and who has had her own special pen for nine years – is a great love of animals, something common to farmers but not really known by the outside world.

Ed is an artist, and is becoming a writer as well. He expects his body to wear out a bit one day and he wants to look ahead and live a creative life. He is already there.