Sunday noise

[daugen]

It's Sunday morning and while my barn area is pretty far from neighbors, there are lots of small churches in my surrounding community. Being a lifelong Quaker who prays in silence, noise is a big issue. Many of you attend Church on Sunday morning and I'm sure have opinions about hearing chain saws and weedeaters in the background. Not much you can do about big trucks and motorcycles, though it would be nice if the latter kept in mind that noise is especially a sensitive issue on Sunday mornings.

But what about all day Sunday? In your community, do you have any social or faith restrictions to that? I grew up not too far from the Mennonites and Amish so I understand The Lords Day. So I do not run chainsaws on Sunday morning. Nor do I operate machinery that makes any noise.

I now live in North Carolina, the Bible Belt for sure, and it's pretty quiet here on Sunday mornings. So I sure want to respect local traditions and desires. But I do wonder what you all think is reasonable for Sundays. Most church services are done by Noon, but not all. When is it reasonable to make lots of noise?

In many places this would be a laughable discussion since you are so far from each other that it makes no difference. But when you live with neighbors, different story.

Likely to be a wide range of opinions here and I hope we can be respectful of all of them.
Thanks for your thoughts. Drew

 

[Gary Fowler]

Well I do not have a church closer than a couple of miles so I don't think anything I would do would disturb them. Around here, Sunday is just another day for most folks (me included) and I hear lawnmowers, chainsaws and other noises on Sunday just as much as any other day.

When I lived in town, I tried not to make much noise before 9 am but I didn't worry about waking up the sinners or any other person that partied all night Saturday night (including my kids) after that.

 

[jack707]

SUNDAY is so posed to be a day of test now I'm in the country and the closest church is about a mile or so away but I hear chainsaws or if there mudding in town I hear truck engings.

 

[dieselcrawler]

I may live in the middle of 118ac, but the way its set up I have neighbors a couple hundred yards away. Sunday doesnt keep the tractors in the barn or lawn mowers in the shed. The church goers do what they do and the rest carry on as any other day. Life in the country... Gotta make hay when the sun shines, and brush hog on sunday morning if thats when youre off work and can do it.

 

[daugen]

I can see combines in the local fields so clearly the harvest has to come in during nice weather.

I personally use noon as a cutoff on Sundays. Maybe I spent too much time in surburbia but other than that combine, not
much going on outside. I went out and listened...

 

[mddorange]

I live in a rural area and normally it is fairly quiet except for a car going too church. Now when hunting season starts next month, there will be plenty of guns going off, especially in the early mornings.

 

[daugen]

I'll tell a brief funny story about Sundays and noise. About ten years ago I was sitting on the facing bench at Meeting in Wrightstown PA, and about half way through our quiet hour the very old building just shook. I've never been next to a 105 Howitzer but that's what it sounded like out in our parking lot. One of the elders looked at me and rolled his eyes and I nodded, quietly getting up and heading for the source of this remarkably loud noise. Turns out it was July 5th, and our new, and still intoxicated from the night before neighbor, was setting off the last of his fireworks he didn't get to. And they were noisemaker mortars. I asked him if he realized he lived right next to a church and it was Sunday morning, during our Meeting hour, and the look of comprehension clearly washed over him and he sort of went oh no. Well, that ended the cannon booms. We still chuckle about that, considering it a patriotic hangover.

 

[skylarkguy]

No churches nearby but i have shut down the tractor when there is an active service at the neighboring cemetary. I like to sit quietly nearby when taps get played on memorial day as well.

 

[TheMan419]

Can't see another house from where I live. Nearest Church is a couple miles away. So any time I want to mow, run the tractor etc is up to me. Well unless SWMBO is still sleeping.....

That said when I lived in suburbia I would not run power equipment before 10 a.m. on Sunday. Saturday was 9 a.m.

Of course living in Indiana I cannot buy alcohol or a car on Sunday.

 

[daugen]

listening to taps being played is an honor, not just for us, but to those who died.
You bet, be respectful of that if you can, something to remember on Memorial Day.
Taps can make me tear up, all those people laid to rest by the same music.

For many years I helped mow the graveyard at my 300 year old Meeting in Bucks County, PA.
I put a piece of slippery plastic on my mower deck edge so if I got too close, it would slide off and not
damage a gravestone hundreds of years old. Taking care of a church is a lot of work, and money, and most members get to
enjoy their churches only on Sunday mornings. So I've been kicking this around in my mind for awhile, wondering if
I'm doing something cringeworthy by firing up a chain saw on Sunday afternoon. Probably not.

and what about the folks who work six days a week and only get to sleep in on Sunday?
Earplugs is the easy answer but sometimes older ways are a good thing to preserve.

When I grew up I was surrounded by farms. When I was older, those farms were all houses.
Very different traditions for the inhabitants.
Times change but is this an eroding of values to some degree? which to others would be just cultural change.
Or did the frontiersmen hunt on Sundays too? Particularly if they were hungry...
whoever is a good historian could tell us, did the mines blast on Sundays too?
We had three granite quarries within twenty miles and they only blasted during the week.