The Cycle of Song and Wash

This morning began with Tom Turkey casually promenading by my dining room window. This is the first I'd seen of turkeys so near the house. He upset a freshly arrived Phoebe, the first I've seen this season, who began his raspy call and wagged his tail at the no-hurry turkey.
The day's other highlight was the arrival of a new front-loader washing machine--its predecessor had died a wracked and clanky death. The new machine required scarcely any water--an environmental boon for all animals--and supposedly runs on about $11.00 of electricity a year. Before it finished its premier wash cycle, I stepped outside and caught the call and response of two chickadees. One sang a dotted quarter note and dropped a third to two eighth notes. The responder, it seemed, repeated the ditty a third lower. And so they called, back and forth.
Inside the washer completed its cycle and signaled with a tune that sounded like a bit of Franz Schubert's "The Trout." I can't endorse brands of washing machine. But I can endorse Schubert...even if he died of syphilis.

Julius Schmid, Schubertiade

The trout escaped in all the water not consumed by the washing machine.