Pulsing Quiet

Saturday morning at seven, I woke up to the sound of a chain saw in my next door neighbor's yard. That's a tad bit early for me. I work evenings and rarely get to bed before 1:30. I closed the window, turned on the fan, wrapped a pillow around my head, but the sound kept penetrating through. Soon, a wood chipper joined in. When I left for work a little after 2 pm, they were still at it. It was one of the few days when I was eager to go to work.

This morning I woke to the sound of a jackhammer and tile saw. The only way to escape the noise was to leave the house and do errands.

I started thinking about Ireland. We stayed for a week in a cottage that was surrounded by peat bogs. It was so isolated and quiet that I thought I was going to go crazy. The only sound I could hear sometimes was the blood pulsing in my ears. The only place to walk was across the peat bog.

Ever try walking across a peat bog? They're squishy and disgusting.
Above is our cottage. It is 190 years old and has been restored. The original floor was dirt, but had been covered in concrete to make it more acceptable by modern day standards. The place was cute with it's thatched roof.

This is the view from the cottage. There were three sheep that wandered around the property. This is the infamous peat bog. When you took a step, sometimes all went fine and other times a shoe got stuck and would have to be retrieved. There was no way to predict what each step would bring. The squishy, sucking sounds were also annoying.

The lake was the final destination and then it was back across the bog to the cottage.

After listening to all of the equipment lately, the bog doesn't seem so bad.