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Lee Schierer
01-27-2022, 3:11 PM
I went out into our pole barn today to put away the trash can. We have several feet of snow on the ground and I've noticed a small tunnel under the Siding boards in one front corner. As I was setting the trash can down, I decided to move the boxes of Christmas lights back to their shelf. I bumped bar-b-que and some other items that were setting along the wall on the floor. Suddenly a rabbit shot out behind them and went out the open garage door. Well, since the rabbit is on the outside, now would be a good time to block the entrance hole so it can't get back in. Then I heard a growling noise coming from the back of the barn behind our boat. Great, I thought there is some other animal in here and it isn't very happy.

I heard, grrrrrr, moved a little closer to the source, grrrrrrrrr, moved again, grrrrrrrrrr constantly looking for a critter. Finally I put my head near to one of the 4 x 6 poles of the barn frame and the noise was much louder. In fact it was coming from the wood. I could hear it clearly with my ear pressed against the 4 x 6. I finally figured out that the sound was coming from our Accu-Rite weather station which is mounted on bracket, which is also screwed to this post, supporting a 14 foot 2 x 4 up the outside of the barn. Every time the wind would puff there would be a grrrrr sound coming from the pole. Apparently the resonant frequency of the 2 x 4 is just perfect to amplify the sound generated by the rough bearings in the anemometer. I had noticed they were going bad when I evicted another spider from inside the weather station housing that had hog tied the rain gauge and the anemometer so they wouldn't move with spider webbing. I had just received the replacement anemometer unit but it was too cold and the snow was too deep to be taking the weather station down to change out the parts.

Maybe the growling will keep the rabbit out.

Zachary Hoyt
01-27-2022, 3:45 PM
That's a great story. I hope that you were in time after discovering the source of the noise to block the hole before the rabbit decided to come back in. We have thought at times that there was a hive of honeybees or a wasp nest or something in the wall of the little greenhouse/sunroom thing I built on to the end of the building in 2003, but I finally realized that the loud buzzing only is heard when there is a strong enough wind from a particular direction. It is audible 30 feet away or more, and the frequency goes up and down like those kinds of bugs sometimes do when I hear them in a group.