Listening Earth Blog

Some of our customers have written to us in the last 6 months, curious that there does not appear to have been anything new added to our Listening Earth site; no blogs, no new albums.

There is a reason.

In May, Sarah and I left home to do some field work in NSW. On the way we dropped in to visit my mother in Sydney, who is 89 years old, very independent and lives in her own unit. Unfortunately we found her in very poor health, which she had been playing down a bit. We immediately moved in to care for her, and remained there for the following three months.

During those months, we progressed from caring for her, to being by her side during her final weeks in palliative care at hospital. She passed away peacefully in August.

It has been an extraordinary time for both Sarah and I; the heartache of seeing someone you love die, while being graced with so much love and support from family and friends.

So Listening Earth has been in ‘maintenance mode’ for a while. We moved our office up to Sydney, got the internet put on in mum’s unit, and have been keeping up with orders. But as you can imagine, we haven’t had a head for much else.

Having held a memorial service and cleaned up mum’s unit and affairs, we have finally returned home to Victoria. However we’re not done yet. Mum grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and she has many friends and family over there. So Sarah and I will shortly be setting off on a road trip to the west, which will culminate with us scattering her ashes in the Indian Ocean.

Despite all the intensity of the last months, we have had some time to think ahead to the future, both for ourselves and Listening Earth. We look forward to adding new features to our online shop, and delving into our library of recordings to create new albums. Next year we hope to get to Europe for our first taste of a boreal forest spring.

Shortly after mum passed away, I was able to go bush for a week to join the Australian Wildlife Sound Recordists for their biennial gathering, held this year at Gundabooka near Bourke. That short sojourn not only restored my spirits, but produced some wonderful recordings, the highlight being an outback dawn chorus that was one of the most musical I have experienced. And of course, it is still the spring season, and we hope to get some recordings from our upcoming journey to western Australia.

So we look forward to bringing you new sounds over our anitpodean summer. Until then, be well!