Clear and cold, with an inversion layer bringing quarry and highway sounds out of the east. A female Carolina wren ticks quietly from the thick shrubbery around the springhouse. Cold as I am, I luxuriate in the absense of mosquitoes.
quarry
A gloomy morning, except for the wren: the dull mechanical songs of the quarry, the low cloud ceiling, the cold breath of autumn making leaves tremble on their stems.
A cool morning with the sky mostly clear and sound out of the east: the limestone quarry’s reverse-chirping trucks, muffled clanks and booms. A squirrel high in the tree next to the road picks a walnut, sniffs it, and lets it fall with a crash.
Another clear, autumnal morning, with the temperature around 12C. The grinder at the quarry is having its breakfast of limestone. I marvel at the flies coming to life as the sun strikes.
Cool and clear, with sound out of the east: the beeping of quarry trucks and a loud scraping of metal on rock as the sun makes its way through the canopy, prompting a burst of song from a common yellowthroat.
Breezy and cool under a low cloud ceiling. A wood thrush sings sweetly just inside the woods’ edge. At the limestone quarry two miles away, something briefly gives the machine cause to roar.
Clear at sunrise, the western ridge brick-red above a meadow full of fog. Sound is out of the east, so field sparrows are answered by quarry truck beepers, and a pileated woodpecker by the grinding of rocks.
A degree above freezing, with an inversion layer bringing sound from the quarry: shrill beeps and muffled thunders of stone. In the time it takes my cereal to cook, dawn pockets all the stars and planets, one by one.
Cold and still, with a wash of cirrus clearing off after sunrise. Sound is out of the east, so instead of the usual roar of interstate traffic, I hear the shrill beeping of quarry trucks reversing to be filled and the grumbling of stones.
Sun in the treetops, joined by jays in noisy, acorn-gathering joy. A pewee bends a note. The distant grind of the quarry.
Overcast and cool, with sound out of the east: instead of the dull roar of interstate traffic, the dull roar of the quarry. I take stock of the dying: spicebush, lilac and currant bushes all blighted by nematodes, mildew or rust. The sun makes a bleary appearance.
Cool and still with murky sunlight and yellow leaves dropping one by one. From the north and east, the guttural hum of industry—that drone note.
The coldest morning since May, with an inversion layer bringing sound from the east—the slightly quieter direction. The Carolina wren duets with beeping quarry trucks.
Clear and still, except for some noise from the quarry—the crusher digesting its breakfast of stone. A deer’s footsteps up in the woods. A scolding squirrel.