Listening

I’m sitting under the self-pruning sweet gum tree out back (looking for a football helmet to wear?) listening. 

• Wind rustling leaves in the trees

• Locust-like insect chirping away

• Traffic roaring on I-35

• Small reciprocating engined aircraft approaching Westheimer Airport (KOUN)

• Wind chime announcing small puffs of wind

• TV audio of Florence, Italy travel guide playing

• Dogs almost silently stalking squirrels atop stockade fence

• Low-bypass turbofan engine on military aircraft approaching Tinker AFB (KTIK), whistling as only supersonic engines at low power settings (flight idle?) do

• High-bypass turbofan engines at low power setting whistling as an airliner approaches Will Rogers World Airport (KOKC)

• Male and female cardinals almost silently scouting the freezer-burned ice that wound up under the sweet gum tree with me (are the thinking about throwing a party later?)

• Heavy multi-engined propeller-equipped aircraft approaching Westheimer (good grief, are we fighting WW II again?)

• Blackbirds yelling raucously at each other 

• Motorcycle roaring down section line road with loud muffler

• Cardinals battling in a tree near the back fence, exchanging loud unpleasantries 

• Two squirrels in a small mulberry tree, cussing their canine tormentors, below

(Crepe myrtle that barely escaped the great sub-zero freeze of winter of 2020-‘21)

The self-pruning sweet gum tree

The big, dead branch in the sweet gum tree came crashing down this morning.   I was glad it chose a time when neither the dogs nor their humans were under it!

—Chuck, 5 July 2022