Rattling Creek and other notes...

I am going to do a two part post today... First, here's a photo to share... taken a couple of days ago, on August first... Which happens to be my sister's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Beth! Sorry it's a little late.

















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This is something I wrote Sunday morning, while sitting on my deck, typing on the laptop. I actually posted it in a journal elsewhere... and had some feedback and comments... and decided to share it here, too. Only I am going to modify the original based on a bit of the feedback I recieved on it.

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Mood: Wistful
Listening to: Music of Nature

So I got up this morning, and walked outdoors to walk the dogs... And sitting here on my back deck, I got to thinkin'.

I wish I could capture not only a little piece of the picture that nature and the world creates for us, but also the sound of it. I've had this feeling before - that if you could capture the sounds of the world, that somehow that would be art in and of itself... Or forget "art"... it'd be... well, it'd just be awesome.

I have a few pictures of Knoebels Amusement Park. What kinda makes them special, for me, is that I was there. I heard the things... To me, they are real. Everyone has done that, but my next problem is, I've always "lived" and then, moved on. I often forgot what movie I watched last week. I really like to read, but after I've enjoyed the words and the stories, I often forget about them, and use my precious few brain cells for some new pursuit, instead of remembering those things.

But since my brain is in the habit of doing that, I find myself drawn to things like photography, where we can capture the world at that precise "moment in time". Similar worlds may exist in the future, and we may be able to capture some future that looks almost identical to today... But it's really a different day, a different hour, a different moment in time.

And one of the differentiators, is that the music of the world is usually different. The sounds around us vary day by day. This morning, I sit on the deck, and I hear... my fingertips typing away at this keyboard. Cicadas off over in the trees a few hundred yards away (my trees, for the most part, aren't big enough to attract those creatures) are buzzing and rattling away, a musical sound that I absolutely love - although some people hate them. At the farm down the road, maybe a quarter mile away, I hear the old roosters crowing at the morning. Birds are all around, singing their musical songs... A bumblebee, or two or three, keep buzzing around the deck, in search of flowers. There are momentary pauses as they find their targets, and then the sounds resume as they move on. I hear the clicking of toenails as the dogs restlessly stir on the deck while I type away. Down on the road, I hear the hum of a car passing, growing louder as it approaches, then fading away as it moves on. On the grain silo, a couple of houses away, I heard the rush of a flutter of wings... hmm.. I don't even know if they are "mourning doves" or just pigeons, but as a group of the birds flew away. And, in the far, far distance, a few moments ago, I could hear the sound of an airplane flying.

Every moment I sit here, I can hear more and more sounds.. that was some of the the major ones. But I heard a noisy housefly or two pass. The dog whine a little as it wishes for me to let it in. Birdfeed being scattered around on the flat plastic surface of the two-seater swing on the swingset, where it has fallen from the feeder, and where some of the birds prefer to look for their breakfast. Crickets, and crows, another airplane's very distant hum. Another, noisier, car starting up from the intersection down the way and coming up past our house. The rooster, he still sits there, and two or three times a minute, he announces to the world that he's still here. Another bee just came buzzing by, passing within a foot or two of me. A cicada that has rested in one of my trees, and is VERY loud every few minutes when he makes his call.

I wish I could capture these moments, and share them with you. But I guess the best I can do right now is to write this down and let you use your imagination. My camera does do "video" but I learned a lesson in using that. My Knoebel's trip... I have "video" from there, from the camera, and it is great - it captured the essence of Knoebels, and helps keep it alive for me. One of these days, I'll upload the source audio as an MP3 and let you hear it, too, through a link. The "Swing" picture is a perfect one for that, because in the audio you can hear the roar of the park - the machinery humming, the children screaming... Just for a moment.

But out here, my camera could not possibly capture all these little subtle sounds of the day. My fingertips tapping on the keyboard, the cars humming by down on the road.. Well you've heard it all before. If you have an imagination, and can take my words and form them into your own sounds.

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In addition to the music of nature.. It's been pointed out to me that I missed something obvious here. There's also the very "feeling" of nature. For example, as I sat there typing the above words, it was a damp, but warm morning. You could already feel the mugginess, although it was a very comfortable temperature. There was dew spread across the ground, and all around an odor... just a faint aroma of farm country.

On this particular morning, it was pleasant, but some mornings, with all other elements almost perfect... that aroma of farm country can be overwhelming. Especially when they've been spreading manure on croplands all around us! But on this morning, when all was perfection, I could just barely sense the dampness in the air... and the odor of damp grass was wafting up to my nose... The morning sun was shining down, warming me, but not heating me up too much, as it would later in the day when I was mowing grass.

I wish you could have been there.