It is a well-recognized fact that some people function better at night while others do their best work in the morning hours.

I, like most men, dogs, roustabouts, cowboys, bakers and cows happen to be a morning person.

How do you know if you are a morning or night person? Well, if you have no idea who Jay Leno or David Letterman are you are probably a morning person. If it comes as news to you that 11 o’clock actually comes around twice, and if you have done two hours of work before breakfast and fall asleep during Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, you are my kind of people: a morning person.

If, on the other hand, you wish the darn rooster would shut up so you could go to sleep for the evening you are probably a night person. Women, bankers, playboys, bartenders and horses are generally night people.

Needless to say, there are exceptions and there exists a very select group of people who can function in both the a.m. and p.m.

Veterinarians and telephone solicitors come to mind here. Still others can’t seem to get any work done in the morning or the evening. Congresspersons and teenagers definitely fit this description.

Sometimes it is difficult to determine exactly what you are. Such was the case of Otto and Peter, twin Basque sheepherders I’ve known for years. And when I say twins I mean IDENTICAL. They make a perfect team in that Otto is a typical morning person and Peter is a night person. Otto rises when the first ray of sun comes shining through his window. But then so does Peter ... except that his bedroom faces west.

Last year the twin brothers were moving their sizable band of sheep from one cheap feed source to another in a part of the country where the identical twins were not well known.

As usual Otto handled things from four in the morning till five at night when Peter would then take over to care for the lambing ewes. After awhile they got in the habit of eating at the same 24 hour coffee shop and both twin brothers eventually got on speaking terms with the waitress who worked the graveyard shift.

After checking the pregnant ewes each evening Peter made a habit of stopping by the cafe about midnight for a late night dinner of steak, potatoes and pie ala mode. Then about four hours later Otto would begin his day by eating a huge breakfast at the very same coffee shop to be waited on by the very same waitress at the counter.

“I’ll have my eggs runny, my toast burnt, and my coffee weak,” Otto would tell the waitress.

“Why on earth would you want it that way?” asked the waitress.

“Because I miss my wife and this will remind me of her,” Otto said jokingly. Peter would repeat the same old joke when he came into eat his dinner.

This routine went on uninterrupted for a week with one twin brother eating every night about midnight and the other twin showing up about four hours later for breakfast. During this period it seems that the waitress never realized that they were twins, thinking they were one and the same person.

Finally, on about their last day in the area Peter showed up later than usual, about two in the morning, explaining that he had been counting sheep.

The waitress suggested sleeping pills might work better. Then later that morning about 5:30 Otto showed up, accounting for his tardiness with the excuse that he had decided “to sleep in that morning.”

The waitress got a confused look on her face and said, “I just have to ask you a question. You work all day and half the night and then you get up at four in the morning. What exactly do you do for a living?”

“Why do you want to know?” asked Otto with a puzzled look on his face.

“Because you are the only person I’ve ever met who has a worse job than I do.”

This farm news was published in the April 5, 2006 issue of Farm World.