This morning, bright and early, it again sounded like someone breaking concrete nearby. That's right, this wasn't the first time I'd heard this sound. First time was yesterday afternoon; I heard it, Marilee heard it, and Bambi and Lexie heard it. Bambi, so much so that she started barking at the sound. At the fireplace.
I know that sound travels in mysterious ways - an echo from far away can reverberate in ways only an audio technician can understand, and I'm not an audio technician. This sound could have originated deep in the earth's crust and found an outlet in...
Like in my old apartment in Murray, I kept hearing a strange buzzing sound coming from one of my walls. It sounded like a 60-Hz AC buzzing like you hear in speakers when the shielding's not quite right. That buzzing ended up being the next-door-neighbor's aquarium pump in a too close proximity to my ear. Or when two AC circuits are too close to each other and the actual wires' electromagnetic induction makes them vibrate, of which there can be disastrous consequences.1
But this sound was a vibration. Coming from outside. Yesterday I'd heard the sound, stepped out onto the back porch, and heard the sound. And promptly figured it was the aforementioned jackhammer so went back inside; the noise promptly ended, so that was that. Then this morning happened.
Upon hearing the sound again, I went outside and slowly approached the chimney. And heard the sound - FROM the chimney.
A bit closer, and peered up at the chimney. And the sound happened again.
And backed up sufficiently to see the top of the chimney...
I think Woody snickered at me. Yes, a woodpecker has taken up residence atop our chimney.
1 Back in the day, I recall either a video or a photo - may have been a drawing - of a factory that had burned down because there were wires laying on an upstairs floor. Whenever the machinery below would start up, the electromagnetic induction between the two sets of wires would make the wires vibrate; this happened for a long enough time that the insulation eventually wore off the wires and shorted out, thus causing a fire. And for the life of me, internet isn't playing along and I cannot find reference to the fire. It's out there - somewhere.
1 comment:
I had a "Rocky Racoon" in my fireplace once. If you hear a noise in your fireplace don't, and I repeat don't look up the chimney, because when I did, a pair of eyes were looking back at me. Don't think that didn't get my heart to beating faster. Had to smoke the poor guy out, and he was HUGE when he came out of the top chimney. Never again to return, of course we put a screen on the top!
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