It's very dark at 3:00 am

It’s now 5:20 am. I’ve been up since 3:00 am. This isn’t any sort of humble-brag or ‘you have to get up early to be a successful farmer’ cliché, this has become a reality of living with wildlife so close – it’s almost inevitable that one of our dogs is going to start barking at something prowling around at 3:00 am. I’m not sure what it is about that time of morning (or night depending on your perspective) but it’s pretty consistent give or take half an hour. The only solution we’ve found that works is to bring the dogs into the bedroom with us at night. But then our youngest dog will eventually refuse to sleep anywhere but on our bed, and even that won’t be quite good enough because he will have to keep changing locations and positions until he ends up cuddled up right next to my husband making it so that he essentially can’t move. Either way, someone is going to have to get up with them at some ridiculously early hour. Today it was me. I’m not sure what it was that disturbed the dogs this time but I am sure that I am more than happy to trade being so tired in the evening that I go to bed at 8:00 pm only to be again woken up at 3:00 am for the ability to be surrounded by wildlife in a way that is so rare for most people it’s become a novelty.