You know one of the great pleasures of my life is saddling up a good horse and heading off into the hills all by myself for a little "listening" trip. We are all so surrounded with noise these days that we don't too often get a chance to really "hear" the wonderful sounds that are drowned out by the din of the work-a-day world. Let me tell you about a few of the things I love to hear. Old men discussing current affairs and reminiscing about how it was when they were young. The cooing sound of a small baby as it lies in the crib in the early morning. The logic of to six-year-olds as they divide a candy bar. A meadowlarks song on a warm summer afternoon. The sound a mountain spring makes as it tumbles over clean rocks to the valley below. A crackling of dry wood in the open fireplace on a cool autumn evening or the crunch of snow under foot when the temperatures drop to 15 below. And have you ever been lying in an old farmhouse bed in the middle of the night and heard the lonesome wail of an old steam engine as it tracks across the plains or the cry of the coyotes just as dawn breaks over the horizon? Oh there are so many beautiful sound just waiting to be heard. The purr of a well tuned engine or the soft lullaby of a young mother with her first-born. Squirrels in the mountain evergreens. Young girls giggling. The friendly warm perk of the coffee pot. The businesslike thud of cord wood being chopped or the sound that comes when you open a brand new book. The roar of a waterfall or the den of the Cathy dudes at dusk in the deep South. The plaintive cry a a loon on a northern lake or the drum of the ruffled grouse in the Upland's. And how about the sound of a good old fashion square dance is it echoes from a barn on a warm summer night. The excuse of a four-year-old who has broken a window or the bawl of a newborn calf that has lost its mother. Yes, the world is so full of wonderful sounds if you just pause a minute to listen.
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