While riding along a gravel frontage road, I came upon a glorious patch of milkweed-- several hundred plants clustered closely together in full bloom, much to the delight of the bumblebees. This location is a study in the spectrum between natural sounds and human sounds: there are crickets, bees, birds of many kinds, and the wind; then there are sounds of roosters, dogs, and children playing; finally, there are airplanes, the highway in the distance, trains rumbling by, and a chainsaw in the forest across from the tracks. Hopefully the tiny sound of monarch wings still passes by this patch of milk weed each spring. One of my uncle John's friends in Spokane recalled seeing trees thick with monarchs in his youth, but those days are long gone. Perhaps one day they will return...
--Caracol
