Beautiful. 
I miss the chatter of having young ones in the house. That chirping is so strangely uplifting. Now I wear my heavy duty Bose noise cancellation head set to stream music, learning videos, and block the constant noise of the neighborhood leaf blowers, trucks and the rattle of my husband's keyboard. (damn those IBMs). 
I love this line:  "A creaking swing door gave her warning when anyone was coming, and she refused to have the creak remedied."