But then the sound came again, that strangled cry, part screech, part gargle. Now I could tell the source. It was beyond the open window, back across the back yard.

Aha. That outrageous noise was being made by the first of our young roosters, coming of age. Answering some instinct from deep inside his pea brain, some cockerel was trying his first crow.

Oh, my. We have at least a half-dozen adolescent roosters out back. Each one will go through this same experiment. Each will try to outdo the others. And at times, several will fire off at once. Anne and I are in for some really ugly awakenings.

The present flock has been on hand since May when they arrived as chicks. I tended them upstairs in the barn till they got their feathers, then shifted them down to the chicken house to replace the flock we'd had for two years.

Their predecessors moved en masse to the Cider Mill, where they'll spend happy months competing with turkeys, geese, and ducks for the corn kernels that visitors throw them.

I'll bet the vending machines that dispense that corn, a scant handful for a quarter, are the best money-makers that Brenda and Bill Michaels have at the Mill. What a profit margin! And, of course, every kid who throws one handful to the poultry is back at once, badgering mom or dad for another coin, then another. It's great entertainment, and the staff must haul away quarters in bushel baskets.

This year the Mill's seven turkeys also spent their early days upstairs in our barn. I got them from Matt at Cooperstown Agway. When the turkeys had fledged out, they moved up to the Mill. I wasn't a bit unhappy to see them go. Turkeys, besides being barely brighter than oysters, are messy, smelly birds, to boot.

Like the chickens, the turkeys will wile away the warm weather at the Mill, eating all the corn the kids can throw.

If they're similar to last year's birds, by November they'll look like Macy's parade balloons. The Sidney Greenstreet of the 2004 flock tipped the scales at almost fifty pounds; towards then end, he couldn't fit through the poultry house door.

When the time comes, I'll haul the bid birds over Edmeston for processing. In return for having got them started and then finishing them off, I'll bring three or four home to our freezer. That's one for Thanksgiving and the rest, cut up and packaged, for meals through the winter. A good deal, I call it. We'll probably even make some more turkey sausage.

Our Fly Creek farm life is measured out by a series of small milestones. Each April brings the birth of lambs, May brings baby chicks. September sees the lambs (teenagers by then) off to processing, followed in November by the turkeys.

In December the ewes head off to be rebred; and, come spring, the cycle begins again. It's an odd comparison, but the year's milestones recall my past monkish days, when each year was measured out by Catholicism's major feast days. But maybe the comparison's not that odd. Caring for animals, tending to their repeated needs, has its own rituals, its scruffy sacredness.

Until three years ago, our yearly animal cycle also had a place for pigs-their arrival, their endless feeding, their departure. But I'm in my post-pig phase now. I decided that, at my present age, it's imprudent to raise animals bigger than I am. The last loading of pigs convinced me of that.

In some past years, the pigs have romped up the pickup's ramp as if it were the gangplank onto a cruise ship.

But three years ago, both 350-pound pigs baulked. Moving each one-concentrated weight, mounted on very short legs-was akin to pushing a safe up a steep slope. Two strong friends were helping me, but it still took a lot of sweat and time to get them aboard. And danger was present, too. A panicked pig can steamroller right over you.

And so, reluctantly, I have foregone pigs. The dimwit turkeys are a pale substitute for them. They're not near as much fun to watch. And, by comparison, the sausage loses out, too.

Anyway, back to that awful, choked cry this morning. Once I realized the source, it brought a smile and a sense of contentment. Life cycles here are progressing, the animals' and mine. Becoming, being, then moving on to make room; that's the pattern, for them and me. I'm grateful for a reminder of that.

This time of year, I spend an afternoon a week down at the Detention Center, counseling young inmates. Typically, each is stunned by the mess he's made of his life. When one on them is awash in self-pity, there's a ploy that often helps. I contrast our ages.

"Hey, look at us! You're still much closer to the start of your life than to its end. I'm much nearer to the end of mine than to its beginning. You're young! You have lots of time to live a different way." Often that does it, and we can talk about a post-jail future.

But every time I make that contrast, the thought echoes inside me. My time is largely completed; I'm comfortable with what it's been and what it is. But I am in my autumn, and winter lies ahead.

The sheep and chickens, who share my mortality, remind me of that. As I said, I'm grateful.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek.