Train horns and frog song

Spring is such a sensory experience.  It's easy to miss it in the din of everyday life, but the sights, sounds, and smells, of Spring are unmistakable and life-affirming.

Here on our small farm, we have the magical fortune to receive both the most beautiful of rural and urban sounds.  Sounds are, I think, way more important to our psyche than we routinely attribute.  Beautiful noises. melodic music, sounds from our childhoods - these have real impact on our everyday lives.  If traffic is our morning soundtrack, it affects our whole day.  If silence permeates our evening meal, that, too, sets the stage.

Tonight, it was late dusk when I came in from bringing unsold farm stand product in and turned around to head back out and close our hens in.  I clomped down the porch and instantly heard the frogs in full singing mode.  The frogs are perhaps the most joyous of our spring sounds here on our little island.  They form a complete chorus and sing for hours.  There's nothing like it.

But, as I crossed the driveway, the lonely and beautiful melody of a train in Tacoma began its song.  We can hear train horns always, and when the winds are right, it sounds like they are in our backyard.  Tonight, our frogs sang and the trains sounded in unison.  Two worlds, colliding in the acoustic universe, though still miles and miles apart.  

I love the trains.  I treasure the frogs.

Spring here is worth waiting for.