A comfortably warm, very damp, end of January morning coffee muses.
The morning is loud. Train whistles are coming from two directions, and the rumble of steel wheels can be heard from both. Make that three directions at once.
Alvin is a hub of train traffic. The main rail runs up Highway 6 from Galveston to the Rosenberg area and beyond. Right in the center of the town a spur splits of and runs up Highway 35/Telephone Rd. And south of town another spur splits off to head southwest along the coast. This morning there was a train moving on all three lines.
Traffic noise is also louder than normal. Trucks rumble, bad mufflers sound even louder than expected. Damp air and low clouds always seem to carry sounds with more volume. E enough the jet passing over sounds louder than normal.
The morning birds are loud out and about. I’m not seeing my normal crowds, but the ones I’m hearing are quite loud. The neighborhood crows are particularly noisy this morning.
And another train goes blowing by… it makes me wonder, how many trains are setting on sidings waiting their turn to travel on up the line.
The sky is getting darker, more rain headed our way most likely.
The cows my neighbor has right behind my place are usually so quiet we hardly know they’re there. This morning at least one of them wants the world to be aware of his or her presence. Not a particularly unpleasant moo, but not one you want to hear with any regularity either.
Time to wrap this up, breakfast with my wife is calling…
We got some of the most violent lightning and thunder about 4 a.m. that I’ve experienced in some time. A cell apparently cranked up just as it passed over us, and it was enough to send the cat cowering. I saw a report that a house in League City was struck: over on the west side of the Gulf freeway. I wouldn’t be surprised.
I heard a dove cooing yesterday and the day before. And the mallards are starting to make little love-noises. Spring is on the way, for sure.
Whatever might have happened after midnight didn’t impinge on my shuteye… but, then, my house is pretty soundtight with lots of insulation in the walls.
Between the mourning doves and the white-wings it can get pretty loud with the different coo’s. And I think my pair of bluebirds are already beginning to build a nest in the bluebird house. Spring or not they seem to be getting ready to raise another brood.