“I knew from day one that she wasn’t cut out for life on the farm.

“We had met in the city and had fallen in love instantly. She was drop-dead gorgeous and I was a loner looking for a woman to spice up my life. So a few weeks after a whirlwind romance, I proposed. She accepted and we honeymooned at the Marriott Marquis in the Big Apple.

“I waited until after the honeymoon to tell her that I was a farm boy from upstate and that I wanted us to move back there. She really did not wanna go, but she felt obligated, and was advised by an attorney that it would be difficult to annul the marriage on those grounds. So off we went to my farm, located off the beaten track in a wooded area north of Albany.

“Everything bothered her… the horse manure was too much and too odorous, the birds chirped incessantly, she didn’t want to wake up early to milk the cows, she didn’t know how to cook eggs or even where to get them after the hens had laid them, the owls hooted too much at night…and the cock crowed at 4:00 a.m. every morning when she would rather enjoy a quiet, undisturbed sleep.

“The complaints kept on for week after week, and month after month. Finally, she packed her belongings and headed back to the city in a fury, saying that she could no longer tolerate life on the farm…or the animals…or me.

“Now that she’s gone, all is sullen and gloomy. Even though, she did not like life here, she was loved and desired by all living creatures in our little abode. All the romance of farm life has dissipated for me, and I no longer have desire to do anything…or for anything. And it seems that all on the farm feel the same way. The cows no longer give milk, the birds do not chirp anymore, and the owl no longer give its usual nighttime hoot.

“It’s all deadly quiet at night too. And it seems that nothing rises up at the crack of dawn anymore.

“Even the cock no longer crows – at any time of day or night.”…