Gray sky ten minutes after a flaming sunrise. A phoebe calls for old times’ sake. Quarry trucks rumble through the gap.
quarry
August 23, 2023
Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
June 19, 2023
Monday morning: back to the literal grind from the quarry. The red-eyed vireo’s usual spell makes nothing happen. A loose strand of spider silk catches the sun.
February 22, 2023
Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
November 3, 2022
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.
September 2, 2022
Cool and clear except for wisps of shredded contrails. Sound is out of the east: rumble of a train, the quarry’s grind.
December 27, 2021
Heavily overcast, with the background rumble of industry: a whole Monday-after-Christmas mood. A raven’s hoarse commentary.
November 17, 2021
Rising late to a sky as gray as my head. Quarry trucks are beeping. The Carolina wren has switched to a minor key.
August 18, 2021
Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.
February 15, 2021
Five doves sit motionless in the crabapple. The drumming of a pileated woodpecker seemingly in response to metallic banging from the quarry.
May 13, 2020
An earth-shaking blast from the quarry, preceded by a muffled boom as if by its own echo. I catch a glimpse of a hummingbird’s long tongue.
March 26, 2018
The sun yellows one branch after another. From the east, the sound of a pneumatic hammer burrowing in the bed of a 450 million-year-old sea.
March 19, 2018
Blue sky with quarry noise and a singing robin. The sun stretches one finger of light down through all the trees on the hillside.
October 27, 2016
Goldfinches repopulate a leafless birch and sit eating seeds. From the east, the sound of the quarry’s crusher, its breakfast of stones.