Silence is Deafening!

Jerry and I sat for awhile tonight, planning our weekend adventure of pickle making. We'll put up 50 lbs of pickles, and spend one long hot tiring day to do it, but we make the best pickles in the world if I must say so myself. During a brief lull in the conversation, it dawned on us that we could hear things - like a dog barking somewhere, our horses snuffling out back and hummingbird wings outside the window. Crickets and frogs and nightbirds - all sounds we haven't heard in 3 weeks! Because of the horrible unrelenting heat, air conditioners or fans have been running 24 hours a day, drowning out any other sounds. It's not exactly cool by any standard - still 80 degrees at 9:15 pm, but compared to all the nights that never quite dropped below 80 all night, this seems almost comfortable. And quiet. The silence now is startling, but I am certainly enjoying it. Now I'm going to go to bed and read, no TV, just a book and the gentle sounds in the trees. I have much to be thankful for tonight.