Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Screech

Last night at midnight, while reading evening prayer, I heard a screech owl. It sat for several minutes in the catalpa tree outside my window and called to me until I was finally motivated to get out of bed, grab my slippers and start for the door of my bedroom. By then, though, it had flown off.

In the din that is midnight in my neighborhood, the thrum of traffic from the highway, the sounds of cars on the main road nearby, the crickets and tree frogs, I heard an owl for the first time in my life.

This site has samples of the song. My owl sang both last night.

4 comments:

John Michael Keba said...

Hey Rachel,

Thanks for putting a name to one of the calls I sometimes hear.

And for the yogurt cheese I make!

Rachel Nguyen said...

My pleasure!

I think kefir is that same yogurt cheese, except that the yogurt was made with cream, not milk, so it is very rich. And hence, delicious!

Do you make your yogurt too? I have done it in the past. It is very simple, but a bit time consuming if you heat and cool the milk as you are supposed to do. I used to make it in 1/2 gallon glass canning jars. But even homemade yogurt was never as good as the real Greek stuff I have gotten at my local Armenian grocery store.

Rachel Nguyen said...

Oh, and isn't that owl's song haunting? It was quite an experience hearing it right outside my window.

John Michael Keba said...

I do make my own whole milk yogurt, in wide-mouth spring-lid jars. I crush green cardamom seeds and heat them with the milk - just enough to give it a hint of that flavor. Then, half gets drained for cheese - I like it on chilled apple slices.

There are so many night sounds I'd like to identify. I am thinking about doing some nocturnal rambles in the woods here, once or twice a week.