Braying Asses

Last night, I was looking forward to a good night's sleep.  I was exhausted from a day of working in the garden, moving bags of compost & soil, moving large clay pots, working the soil, and planting.  All of which was then topped by the stresses of dealing with braying asses - human & equine.

Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise when I had a hard time falling asleep last night.  Don't know why, but even the ever reliable relaxation exercises weren't working. Finally, I fell asleep sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight.

I don't know why I even bothered with the exercises to sleep.  At 12:38 a.m., a braying ass awakened me.  It was one of the neighbor's personal asses. How do I know?  The decibel level.  The closer the braying ass, the louder it is.

So, what is a decibel?  The decibel (dB) is the unit used to measure the intensity of a sound. The  human ear is incredibly sensitive, allowing one to hear everything from your fingertips brushing over your skin to a loud rock concert. On the decibel scale, the smallest audible sound (near total silence) is 0 dB. A sound 10 times more powerful is 10 dB. A sound 100 times more powerful than near total silence is 20 dB. A sound 1,000 times more powerful than near total silence is 30 dB.

Decibel Levels of Common Noises

Now then, just how loud is a donkey?


According to those who dwell with donkeys, a donkey's braying can be heard at least 1.75 miles (3 kilometers) away, making it much louder than the call of a horse or mule. The main purpose of this peculiarly loud sound is to allow the animal to be in contact with other donkeys across the vast desert distances.  That's loud.

Here's a blurb about the adverse affects of noise.

"There are adverse physical and mental effects from noise. For example, prolonged periods of exposure to 65 dBA can cause mental and bodily fatigue. Furthermore, noise can affect the quantity and quality of sleep; cause permanent hearing damage; contribute to the development or aggravation of heart and circulatory diseases; and transform a person's initial annoyance into more extreme emotional responses and behavior." (Marsh, A. 1999. University of Western Australia, School of Architecture and Fine Arts. Cited in East of Huajatolla Citizens Alliance. Noise.)

I can honestly say that I am suffering from several of these effects: mental & bodily fatigue, lack of quality sleep, and some extreme emotional response, i.e., crying over gray hairs.

To give you an idea of what a donkey bray sounds like, please click on one of the links.  To have an idea of what this sounds like at 4:00 a.m. or some other time in the dark of the night, turn up the volume in a silent room.

Braying Audio (short)

Braying Audio (longer)

It's bad enough that the braying woke me up after just falling asleep.  However, the damned things started braying, again, around 4 a.m., waking me up.  I fell back asleep rather quickly with the phone in my hand as I was going to call the sheriff.