Tuesday 23 October 2007

It's noisy round here

A big part of moving to Devon from urban encroached Warwickshire was getting away from the noise. Peaceful as a tomb on some mornings, a torturous switch would be flicked and road and air boomed its burden.
Here, the occasional plane comes past, the red Devon Air Ambulance hovers, and the RAF have been known to lean out of their Harriers and Chinooks and wave at the dogs (well, no, but they get so low you think they might). But these are rare intrusions. The regular noises are of the rural and agricultural kind.
There is the the regular clunk clunk of the chains hitting the sides of an empty muck spreader, accompanied by the rich whiff of future plenty. In autumn the terrifying flails are out trimming the hedgerows. The milk lorry rattles down the lane late at night taking its lactose load to be cartoned for your breakfast. Here on the farm there are angle grinders and bandsaws and chainsaws and cement mixers and diggers and all kinds of tools and machinery moaning, groaning and whirring at their task.
And then there are the animals. Each morning this week a stag has been roaring that his testosterone is high and that he's ready to party. In response, confused cows have bellowed back inviting him over to their place. Next doors' cockerels join the wild bird's dawn chorus. The Barnevelder cocks I'm rearing for meat are not yet mature so their muffled adolescent crowing isn't a cause for disturbance yet. The owls screech and call at night. The ram is bashing on the gate in his eagerness for the 1st of November when he will be allowed to visit the harem. The dogs growl and bark if something so much as deigns to pass the farm gate. The cat wheezes and squawks to be fed. The sheep munch rhythmically on haylage and the geese honk and shout. The cluster flies just buzz.
It's an old house so the sash windows rattle in their frames, the Aga snores as it gulps its oil, and with a distinct lack of carpeting the floorboards bend and creak as animal and human feet tap across the floor.
Soon, the builders should be arriving to start work on restoring the barns adding their sounds to the mix. I may invest in a packet of ear plugs.

3 comments:

Mutterings and Meanderings said...

And people think it's quiet in the country.

garfer said...

What a bleedin' racket.

Complain to the village council. That usually gets up the locals noses. They'll come after you with pitch forks.

Mopsa said...

It's good noise though, M&M, as you know.

Garfer - perhaps I can borrow a Tunnocks tea cake to pop in my ears? And I have a couple of pitchforks of my own, and no desire to complain!