Farm Sounds

11-11-11

Each season has a distinctive sound on our farm. I’m convinced that blind I could tell you the month by the sounds that reach the ear. I’m speaking of both natural and our modern sounds. November sound reaches the farm more easily as leaves begin to fall. A neighbor’s voice is heard even at a few hundred yards away. The whine of a mower in fall is clear, unlike the background roar of the summer mowing. The sounds of crows gathered in the tall sycamore at the woods edge. Or, the sound of guns an hour after sunrise signals the arrival of deer season.

The sound of wood being chopped echoes the valley. A particular sound only heard in the fall or winter, muted by damp and dying leaves it is heard as a dull “crack”. The winter axe has a sharp report like a rifle. On the other hand a chainsaw is heard in all seasons.

Last winter Cindy’s car slid off Pond Creek Rd. during a surprise ice storm. I have no idea what that sounded like…perhaps only a sharp explosively voiced “Oh Shit”! After walking up a long drive only to find no one home she returned to her car and found a Samaritan waiting to see if he could help. He brought her home while the wrecker towed her car. She offered payment. He asked, instead, if he could hunt our property next deer season.

Gene (his name) showed up last weekend with his wife Mary. We spent an hour walking the back of the property looking for a suitable site for his deer stand. He returned this morning about an hour and half before sunrise with his bow and arrows.

At 10 am this morning I’m pruning in the orchard when Gene pushes through the gate. At 8:30, about 30 minutes after sunrise, he shot a large buck. It ran about 30 yards before it dropped. After field dressing his kill he hauled to within a few hundred yards of the barn. I used the tractor to bring it the remaining distance.

He had offered to pay us to hunt. We asked instead for a roast from any deer he shot. I’m not sure of the sound an arrow makes hitting a deer. But the sound of a dinner of venison is a sigh of contentment.