It was pretty quiet this week, well, sort of

I feel kind of like the little town that Paul Harvey used to talk about this week. Like Jesup, Georgia, nothing happened on our little corner of the world. So one might say is was quiet. Well, not exactly.
We live in the country where it is quiet, right? There are a lot of noises that we hear because they aren’t drowned out by other more insistent noises. Like birds. I was hanging clothes on the line Monday night when I heard an awful flapping racket in one of our juniper trees. Scotchy was out there with me and she was just intently staring at the tree. At first I thought that maybe one of my chickens had decided not to go into the house to roost and was trying to get high enough into the tree to be safe. I went in and shut the chickens’ door and they were all accounted for, but the noise was still going on. Then, while I was watching, a Eurasian collared dove literally fell out of the tree, crashing down through the branches until it caught itself on the bottom branch. So there was my noise this evening.
Earlier this afternoon I went out the back door to hear a cacophony of sounds coming from our cottonwood and ash trees just northwest of the house. The starlings, blackbirds and grackles are gathering to start heading south, and they were really telling the world they were there. When I shut the door, they all stopped and at that time it really was silent. It amazes me how they all stop at once, not one chirp out of place. Then in just a few seconds they all start again, all at once. I have noticed the starlings doing the murmurations. It is like a ballet. They are so graceful and when they change directions, I don’t know how they keep from hitting each other. Even that is noisy. Their wings sound like a big fan blowing wind as they turn and dive.
We have cranes, coyotes, owls and woodpeckers that all add to the noise at different times of the year. The cranes are relatively quiet this time of year, but the geese are honking as they go over. The coyotes are really noisy right now as the young are learning to hunt. The owls, both great horned, screech and long eared, are setting up territories right now. A lot of owl species mate in December and start laying eggs in late January. So they are hooting and whistling up a storm at night right now. This time of year the woodpeckers like to peck on the cabin, but in the spring, they drum on the metal granaries as a declaration of territory. Boy, that will wake a person up in a hurry.
And sound carries out here because there isn’t a lot of background noise. The highway is over a mile away, but we can hear the Jake brake of the neighbor’s beet truck cackle clear as a bell. At night the whirr of the sprinklers and the “chuck, chuck” of the rainbirds on the end can be heard. Sometimes the gearboxes need attention and then they make a grinding noise.
And the neighbor’s music. I was down near the shop walking home several nights ago and could hear her music clear as can be. She doesn’t play it loud, it was just carrying that night. The worst though is the trains coming through Greybull, especially when it is really cold out. That sound comes right up the river and it sounds like the train is coming right through the yard.
So it is quiet and it isn’t. But I will take our noise over the sounds of traffic and sirens and neighbors in a city any day.
And now I have been so long-winded that I don’t have room for a recipe. I promise two next week.