Oh the sounds

The other night I camped on the ground of a property. Every once in a while you see a blue sign with a house on it pointing to a property. It’s not always clear which property but in this case, this time it was and I thought I’d go and check it out. It’s supposed to be a place where one is welcome to have a farm stay. I asked if I could pitch my tent and so it was that I could. Easy. Nice. By the river near the town of Russ/Rusne…which really has nothing much to it. I thought the river might be something like my father's beloved Greituschke. And the woman was watching “Little House on the Prairie” in Lithuanian. That was funny!

I was disappointed that evening in my choice of places to stay because it wasn’t the nice peaceful, restful kind of nature experience. The picture can be deceiving. All the elements were there except that a bunch of men came to do some work and it was very loud, chainsawing and hammering. And there was a yahoo jetskiing on the river like a maniac until he fell in. Then he had to go home. I laughed. They have a big teepee on their property that had smoke coming out of the top. It was very strange and I wondered whether it was a smoke house and whether they were smoking fish or meat perhaps. I realized when I saw these big, perhaps Russian, worker men heading into the teepee with speedos on that it was not only a scary sight but that they were going for a sauna. Thankfully they didn’t invite me along!


But the morning was glorious. It made up for it all then. I wasn’t that excited about the sun getting up at a quarter to 5! But my back was sore by that time anyway and by the time a quarter to 6 came along oh what a feast for the ears. I had to get up then. Especially when I realized that I was hearing a cuckoo calling. The cuckoo it calls. The real bird. I’d never heard it before. It sounds just like my clock except better. Maybe partly because it was farther away and it just fits into the atmosphere. And the bird has no concept of time. I heard it first at a quarter to 6 and it called mostly continuously right up until I left and then it may have continued but by 9:30 the people were up and had loud music going on their boat. (Not boot) The storks were clattering with their long red beaks. There are so many of them. At one point I counted 9 circling up ahead just enjoying the beauty of the morning. One was strutting around along the top of the roof. He was clattering. But I heard some clattering while flying, soaring too. And they're so cool sitting in their huge nests. Or sleeping on one leg. Or strutting around in the fields. And then there were the frogs. I was sitting on the dock for the longest time. And the frogs plitter-plopped along the greenery to get to the edge so they could sunbathe there. And they are so loud! That itty bitty, tiny, little creature can make such a loud sound. Sometimes I nearly jumped out of my skin because I was very close. And the fish are loud too! They were constantly jumping out of the water. And some of them are huge. Their plops make big deep splashes as if someone had thrown a big rock in. Oh and there were some ducks too and some cows complaining in the background but they somehow seemed incidental, almost ordinary! But not really because they're special too. They did add to the ambience. And all along the cuckoo kept calling his name, those familiar two tones. So beautiful.