Noisy Neighbours

So a Sailor walks into a bar. A ship's wheel is sticking out of the front of his pants. "Errrmmm.... Excuse me," says the barkeep, "Do you know you have a ship's wheel in your pants?"

"Oh, Aye!" replies the old salt. "It's drivin' me nuts!"

To the West we have Deon, a local farmer with very extensive lands - I would guess in the thousands-of-hectares range. He's bought himself a bulldozer - quite a serious machine - and is clearing areas of his land of weedy trees. He's already cleared out some watercourses to the West, and that's a good thing, especially with the drought still more-or-less in residence. It's actually quite fascinating to see the real lay of the land once the trees (and they're mostly all invasive aliens) have been removed. He's taking good care, too, that topsoil is not being stripped. Still, it's a pretty noisy business, this bulldozing.

To the West East we have the local Forestry company thinning the Pine Plantation, so on that side its chainsaws and tractors pulling out logs all day, not to mention the daily logging-truck growling past. The thinning operation has been going on for about 3 or 4 weeks now. At times it's pretty noisy, and other times we don't hear them at all until we go for a walk in that direction (our favourite walks) with the doggies. I find it quite fascinating, the weird and unpredictable ways that sound travels (or fails to travel.)

And to the North we have Ms Bayou Babe (the official Village Halfwit) engaging in Major Earthworks on her property. A digger-loader is now well into its third week of work on the land. They must be halfway to China by now! In a way I feel sorry for these people; it seems to me a kind of sickness, to hate a piece of land so much that you feel compelled to completely terraform it. What led you to acquire that piece of land if you did not love it for what it was? Anyway, it's noise there, too, from dawn to dusk.

And to think we moved to the country for the peace, quiet and tranquility!

It'll all come to an end, sooner or later, I know, but in the meantime, "It's drivin' me nuts!"