Rural Quietude

After today's training, which seemed particularly grueling even with other members of my training group yelling encouragement as they passed me, my husband and I took off for our quinta (a small country place) in the orange-growing region to the south of the city.

Since I had already given myself today's dose of physical abuse, I decided not to ride. It would have taken up too much time to jerry-rig a pulley-and-crane system to haul me aboard Bandolero, so I gave him his carrots--that's all he thinks I'm good for anyway, supplying carrots and fawning over him idiotically.

I don't know what comes to your mind when you think "countryside". Perhaps a green, gently rolling English meadow framed by hedgerows and harboring some placid, fat sheep. Or those endless amber waves of grain in the U.S. heartland. Or even the rough, mesquite-infested ranchlands in the Texas hill country. But I'll bet my Asics yet again that you don't imagine a place where the decibel level drives you indoors.

My husband and I settled comfortably on the porch in lawn chairs, a gentle breeze blowing; he had some work to do, and I planned to slip into a comatose state. It was not to be.

Suddenly the cicadas fired up, and it sounded like chain saws at a major logging facility.

"Good grief!!" roared my husband over the din. I knew he was saying something else because I could see his mouth move. He gathered his papers and beat a retreat into the house.

The din came in waves, falling off to a serenade similar to the sound of Italian motorbikes on a busy Rome street. During the relative lulls, the rest of the noise could be heard: birds that chirped, cawed, whistled, crowed, gobbled or screamed. There were sounds I couldn't identify--an odd hooning, and some sort of monotonous animal call. Once in a while, a goat bleated.

Maybe it's the drought that has affected the insects, but we couldn't remember this level of racket during other springtimes when sudden showers would discourage the cicada madness. There was one memorable rainstorm after which the frogs and toads came out in such numbers you couldn't hear yourself think and you couldn't find a clear piece of ground to step on. The only other time we had experienced such an invasion was during a vacation in Hawaii--we were trying to play tennis and had to take "toad breaks" to push the little devils off the court.

I'm indoors now and the cicadas are just a distant whine. This has been one of those days when I can't help wondering if a major rain isn't on its way--hope really does spring eternal--because this decibel level isn't normal. But no matter. If the cicadas don't get us, the toads will.