When we think of a swamp, we think about sweating and mosquitoes. Yet if you listen to a swamp, there is much more to hear than just the droning of hungry mosquitoes. Not too far away from my place, there are some swamps. Some call them ponds, but since you could nearly walk from one end to the other, getting your knees muddy in the process, I think these can be called swamps.

Here in Nova Scotia, swamps do not contain alligators or any other animal that wants to consume you. Apart from some mosquitoes, perhaps. The swamp in this post is close to the beach, giving me some relief from the mozzies.

Sometimes, just sometimes, everything comes together like clockwork. Today was not such a day. A thunderstorm “showed up” by surprise, none was forecast in my area. So when it did start, it started with a loud bang, unlike any other t-storms.

This one  started as if someone had flipped a switch.

Sometimes you just have to go outside and see/hear what is there. I was kind of tired of the steady rumble on my recordings in town, even if it’s only a village. The rumble most certainly comes from the nearby highway as well as from the A/C units everyone is using in town.

Not many ways around it without making the recording sound tinny and unnatural.

It’s not often I get up early in the morning, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. I usually fall back into a deep sleep until well past civilized wakeup times. Sometimes, though, it happens. Last weekend was such a time. I was awake at 5:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

So the next logical step was to grab a face cloth, dunk it in icy water and put it on my face to make sure that this golden moment wouldn’t go away.