Beekeeper and Climate Land Leader Jane Shey, Algona, Iowa
“What sounds did you used to hear on the farm that you no longer hear?” a friend asked us recently. Climate Land Leaders quickly chimed in with answers that produced reveries of the farms of our childhoods. Here is a smattering of their responses.
- Meadowlarks in the pasture calling their mate.
- Mourning doves in the grove
- Pheasants and quail calling from the grassy field edges.
- Bees swarming at the hives
- Woodpeckers
- Meadowlarks
- Wet clothes flapping in the wind on the clothesline.
- Rooster crowing
- Chickens clucking
- Guinea hens
- Pigs snorting
- The clang of hogs flipping up the feeder
- Sound of hooves while riding horses
- Cows mooing as they come home for evening milking
- Clank of the stanchions around the cows’ necks
- Calves slurping from the milk pail
- Separator sloshing as milk came out one spout and cream, another
- Cats running and meowing to the pan where milk was sloshed for them
- Creak of the rope swinging in the haymow
- Thump of the kid’s body as she dropped from the rope to the hay below
- Thump of the bail on the barn floor as it was pushed out of the mow
- Cows breathing in the barn on a cold night
- Cows munching in the field as we hid out in the corn crib
- Shovel scraping the barn floor while mucking
- Sound of mucky boots being taken off and dropped on the mud-room floor
- Screeching and “poof” of the air brakes on the semi truck backing up to the cattle chute
- Pop pop of the old John Deere tractor
- Chokecherry branches scraping against the tractor as we drove by them
- Pickups & cars driving by on gravel road.
- Barking of the dog as we drove into the yard and it yapped at the wheels
- Kids yelling, “You’re running over the dog!”
- Rustling of flames in the wood stove
- Clank of the metal lid over each burner on that stove when you put it back after moving it aside
- Dinner bell
- Noon whistle
- Mom calling us in from play “Yoohoo”
- Screen door banging
- Clatter of bowl and fork emptying leftovers for the cats/chickens/pigs
- Clink clink of a windmill
- The creek of the porch swing.
- Click click of the neighbor listening in on the party phone line
- Voices of adults coming up through the heat vents from downstairs as we went to sleep up above
- Howling of the wind from inside the house