Podcasts.
I appreciate silence when hunting, but when gardening, cleaning, driving it’s 100% podcasts. Mostly history.
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That’s my jam. Recommendations? @jrd51
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The single best pure history podcast series is Mike Duncan’s Revolutions. He gives a history of major revolutions: English, American, French, Haitian, Latin American, 1830, 1848, Paris Commune, Mexican, and Russian. Be warned – he is thorough. For example, the series on the Russian revolution is hundreds of podcasts long. If you want to “learn stuff I never knew before” then I’d recommend that you start with Haiti. Note that he improved over time, so the podcasts on the English and American revolutions are the weakest, French was very good, Russian is by far the best.
Duncan also did a prior series, History of Rome, which is excellent.
The best combination of history with questions regarding the human condition is anything by Dan Carlin in his series called Hardcore History. His individual podcasts tend to be long, maybe 4-5 hours. He’ll cover a topic in 1-5 of these long podcasts. He also has a more political podcast with historical context called Common Sense. If you’re interested, I recommend that you start as I did with his single episode (5-6 hour) podcast on Caesar’s invasion of Gaul titled, “The Celtic Holocaust.” He starts by imagining the Celtic farmer seeing the approach of the Roman legions; anticipating rape, murder, enslavement. Then he asks, “What would you be willing to die for?”
Note that when Caesar invaded, there were an estimated 6-7 million people in Gaul. By the time he left, 1/3 had been killed, 1/3 had been returned to Rome as slaves. Back then as through much of human history, capturing people and selling them as slaves was the #1 strategy to get rich.
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Some of us don’t hear silence we just hear “weeeeeee”. Tinnitus can be annoying. At least the bugs and birds here are usually louder so I don’t hear the ringing.
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Heavy duty!! Thanks!
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Fortunately, my brain ignores the ringing 99% of the time. When it does kick into my consciousness, I try to think of it as music. There are people who can’t ignore it and tinnitus can become crippling or even deadly.
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Sorry for everyone afflicted with this. My FIL has it. I can’t imagine….
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I have spent thousands and thousands of hours hunting, fishing, trapping, gardening, orcharding, etc…
Never felt the need to entertain myself.
I am entertained enough by creation itself.
I do enjoy talking with the animals.
I can call barred owles up with my voice… (who cooks for you, who cooks for you all) grey fox, coyotes (rabit in distress calls), bobwhite quail (with female whistle).
I dont have a problem with just listing to all the sounds of creation either.
Turkey hunting… in the woods a hour before daylight… first sounds … barred owl… and occasionally a turkey gobbler… will gobble back at the owl… as daylight breakes crows call… and turkey gobbles… then 15 minutes after daylight hundreds of birds are calling out their song.
I heard the sound of every creature in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, on the seas and within them saying…
I hear that as daybreaks.
TNHunter
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For easy to medium effort chores, I’ve been enjoying audiobooks a lot lately.
For really hard work, I tend to get into the rhythm of my own breathing and usually get a repetitive snippet of a song stuck in my head.
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just louder they work like hearing aids. It has mic and speaker per ear. Only difference is the gun range ones limit loud noises which I use in the shop with loud machines / tools / saws etc. Better than ear plugs that you have to take out to hear anything.
You can hear people whispering easier, quiet animals and bugs easier etc. I hear bees from like 30ft away (my ears are very good already)
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Happy Fathers’ Day to all the fathers on our forum!
I can depend on the US Navy to ‘entertain’ me while trying to work out in my garden or orchard.
I live under the flight pattern of the Navy’s jets, doing touch-downs at the small airbase just down the street. They leave the big base at Oceana in Va Beach and head straight to my house, it seems (!) - and then practice their approaches and touch-downs, on a simulated concrete carrier deck - flying very low - right over our house. That isn’t their official flight pattern. They are ‘supposed’ to skirt our property and fly over surrounding trees and swampland. But - they cut corners, flying right smack over our house . . . and drive us nuts! It’s maddening for all of those who live in zones where the Navy flies.
Their noise has caused hearing damage. My ears started ringing and every dog I’ve ever had has compromised hearing - if not, gone deaf. When I hear the jets approaching I can drop whatever I have in my hands to cover my ears, but I can’t cover my dogs’ ears at the same time. I try to shuffle everybody indoors as quickly as I can.
When we first moved here, 40 years ago, the planes’ noises were quite tolerable. Then the Navy changed the jets that fly out here, to ones that are absolutely deafening. It never fails . . . that when I head out to have some peaceful time in the orchard or garden . . . here they come.
It’s uncanny.
I bought some inexpensive padded earmuffs. They do the trick muffling really loud sounds. I can still hear people talking. However, it takes the pleasure out of the experience of ‘spending time with nature’ - cancelling out all nature noise. And the earmuffs are a bit uncomfortable - very tight - and hot in the summer.
I’ve gotten ready to head out to do gardening, grafting, or pruning, gathering all my supplies and looking forward to some quiet time, alone in the orchard. But, many times - it was just not meant to be . . . because soon after getting a good work rhythm going, the planes would start flying!
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I wish I could hear all that. Where I am, the sound carries too much. I have 9 acres in a narrow valley and I can hear all my neighbors, especially the new back door neighbors who are fixing up the fire hazard on the hill behind me. Up the hill beside me there’s a guy who is constantly on his tractor, leveling and expanding the fat area, and (hopefully not on purpose) filling in my uppermost pocket pond. I hear all the cars and weedwhackers and mowers and fence post pounders from the hill on the other side, small planes and helicopters that fly over, and cyclists who talk to each other on the curvy road. Sometimes people pull over on the wide spot in the road and just talk. It’s a lot of noise, and my job is noisy enough.
Of course, I think they hear me, too. What’s weird is that my last property was very similar. I wasn’t even within a mile of a dragway, but I was downhill and heard it every weekend all summer.
It’s peaceful here when it’s raining, when I do early chores before work, and when Mom and I go sit on our hammock chairs after 7 and Iwatch the goats and birds.
I also plan projects, remember things, change my mind, and sidetrack myself. Singing and talking to the plants, goats, and feral cat help me stay in one place until a chore is done, and not get off track. If I had a dollar for every time I said I would come right back to finish something, maybe I could retire! Also, maybe I wouldn’t have 10 tree tags that say “unknown Queener scion on unknown Greenmantle on Bud 9.”
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Any particular songs? I tend to get the silly ones stuck, like Harry the Hipster Gibsons “Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?”
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It can be anything. I had Paul Simon’s “Graceland” stuck in my head for days in a row on a backpacking trip once when I was in high school. It went on for so long I started to feel like I was going crazy. I avoid that song now and if I start to feel it getting stuck again I have to listen to something else to get rid of it.
More recently, I had a similar episode with “Code Monkey” by Jonathan Coulton. Another song I can’t listen to anymore.
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I listen to YouTube as a podcast. Or watch if possible.
But have to be careful with watching and working. I cut my finger bad one time while watching and working.
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Covering apples takes a while with each tree. I notice things while keeping fingers busy. That was how I saw the currant borers mating a couple years ago - the only time I have seen those clearwing moths. Up in a tree helps bring in the voices of the ravens that live near the past four years, black-capped and mountain chickadees, house finch song, junco trill, kestrel keelees (nesting about 8 blocks away this time) or notice if/where bumblebees nest in this yard. Once two bumblebee nests were active at opposite sides of the yard.
For most applications I find it worth my time to take off the woody calyx from each black currant. That reduces the woody overtone & tannin. Since I put currants into quart yogurt containers and the freezer, this can be done at need. Then I put on a CD (remember those?) of classical music: Corelli trio sonatas, Handel Chandos Anthems, Dowland, Byrd, Veracini, madrigal collections; or jazz: Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Connie Evingson or Dave Brubeck (Take Five).
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I bought Dewalt’s Jobsite Bluetooth (Speaker Only) to stream podcasts and music from my phone while thinning peaches. Also I have the Sirrus XM app so plenty of options.
It’s a slow job when thinning so I don’t have to move the speaker very often. Runs off their tool batteries or A/C. Good quailty sound. Worth the $99 on sale.
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I was listening to old Spike Jones records the other night, I have a pile of LPs of the Spike Jones orchestra. my partner and I acting out the spooky songs together. straight vaudeville
my garden soundtrack has a lot of Bessie Smith in it.
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