Chicken Shit

Ø  Chicken Shit –

You might have thought this would be about someone frightened of little things, jumpy, flinching at shadows, a “scaredy-cat”, skittish, fearful of small and large animals and creatures of all sorts real and imagined, but that isn’t what this is about. It’s really about chicken shit, poop, droppings, whatever. See, we live in a rural area outside a cute little country town of about 8,000 people. The area is very fertile and there is plenty of farming, dairy operations, vineyards, an Alpaca farm, one guy even raises peacocks and miniature horses, but there are also chicken and egg producers.

Now I expect if you’ve been anywhere near farm country you’ve gotten a whiff of fertilizer, some chemical, some organic. Organic = manure. Cattle, other, and Chicken. I’m going to be careful here not to gross anyone out, ok, so stick with me. The good old days of spreading manure by using it in relative solid form and “flinging” it from an open wagon spreader has given way to “slurry” sprayers. To be sprayed, it has to be in a liquid form, need I say more. The old way was smelly, but it was “flung” and it landed, and it sat and decomposed, providing nutrients to the soil. The liquid sprayed slurry, is even more smelly, and that is due to the much smaller liquid particulates being pushed by wind much more so than the solid flung crap. If you get my drift (haaa), it floats in the wind and carries, and if it floats and carries on the wind, you can therefore drive past a field and through that same wind and now you got a coating of the crap literally on your car. I’ve had a car smell like shit for a week, serious!

OK, so slurries are not equal in stench. In order from bad to worse: Bovine (that’s Cow shit), Swine (that’s Pig shit), and Poultry (that’s CHICKEN SHIT or it could also be turkey, but I’m talking Chicken here). I don’t know how or really want to try and describe it, if you are familiar with it (I’m sorry) but you know what I mean, suffice to say it is just plain fricking nasty!

You catch a whiff of that and it’s immediately, hold your breath till you think you’ll pass out - close all windows - turn off the AC - drive as fast as you safely can - and get past it. Even then it’s so nasty your eyes will probably be burning (making it even harder to drive fast safe) and you’re light headed from holding your breath, and already getting hot flashes because the car is closed up with no air flow (and that’s the point but its hot outside) so you’re just about to fricking die, all because of Chicken Shit. Peeyeewie !  N A S T Y nasty. It is scary bad. I will even drive the long way to avoid an area if I know they are spraying. It kinda freaks me out to think about it floating in the air.

The thing is, if you happened to read my last post, all this organic (albeit from animals) matter is the nutrient rich substance that helps grow and produce the grains and various vegetables that are so delicious and nutritious – they even smell GOOD. Of course you always need to wash you organic food, same as if it’s chemically fertilized, but I guess I prefer the stinky organic stuff, than the chemical stuff used to help grow my food.

I just need to quit being such a Chicken Shit about it I suppose!

SHIT historical trivia – Manure is and always has been used as fertilizer and as such it was a commodity to be sold, traded and used to support farming all around the world. To transport it globally it was shipped on sailing vessels across waterways, seas and oceans. It was dried and packed in various containers. When loaded into the vessels hold, it was marked to placed toward the top of the hold rather than at the bottom, since all ships had some seepage and water accumulation in the belly of the storage areas. The British shippers marked in English the letters S.H.I.T. = Ship High In Transit.

Now of course that bit of historical trivia very well may be total B.S. Bull !

Gotta run - till next time, and then maybe another "smell" blog, but it will be about sweet things in the air like cereal, and candy and CHOCOLATE ! (because we live by places making all that stuff too).

Spring into Summer

               

Ø  Spring into Summer in PA –

Spring and the beginning of summer in the lovely Susquahanna Valley of Pennsylvania brings rain and lots of it, then warmer temperatures and of course, humidity. I HATE humidity. An 80 degree day with 90% humidity makes it feel like 100 degrees. Even worse, it blankets you like a thick, heavy (handcrafted and colorful, tightly hand stitched, made by little Amish and Mennonite women) cotton batted, wool-lined quilt !

Hot, muggy, sticky, stifling, heavy, oppressive, draining, sweltering, clammy, sweat-inducing, pulling the life out of you, FRICKING humidity. It sucks. Really. But, there is believe it or not, an upside to the heat, rain and humidity  . . . .

Fresh STRAWBERRIES ! Roadside stand fresh. Out of the bushel basket into the green pint container, placed with care by a cute little Amish kid with bare feet and red juice stained fingers from those beautiful, plump, fresh berries. Juicy and sweet. Flavor that can't be compared. Burst in your mouth, sunshine in a berry, taste-bud stimulating, mouthful of happiness, strawberry goodness ! It takes me back to times at my Grandmothers farm garden in Iowa, wandering into soft rich black dirt of her garden to search for the perfect ripe Strawberry to pick, blow off the dust and eat! Nothing better. Well, maybe fresh off the vine sun warmed tomatoes from the garden, or sweet peas, or carrots, or radishes, or well, anything that fresh.

We are blessed to have an abundance of roadside stands of fresh produce, fruit and other handmade goods. Many still work on the honor system, with a tin can to drop your pocket money and dollar bills and make your own change. You can even find farm fresh brown eggs in coolers on the bed of a hay wagon for a buck-fifty. All season long. And Sweet Corn (in approximately 27 days per the “Ear of Corn" countdown sign on Route 23 outside Silver Spring, PA – a whole other blog waiting on this!  Besides the little neighbor garden stands, we also have the pleasure of Farmers Markets, Co-ops, community gardens and Farm Shares, all of which have local, and organic, offerings and the opportunity for participating in the soil prep, planting, caring, harvesting. I may have to drive a bit to get to some of these places, but it is well worth it.

So even though the heat and humidity totally suck, I gotta get out, brave the weather and support my local growers and farmers. It’s healthy and good for me (and I suppose the daily “sweat lodge” humidity ritual has some cleansing value – positive mental attitude mind game I play with myself for motivation).

So even if you don’t have this luxury within your immediate proximity do what you can to support local growers and sustainable farming.

Buy Local ! 

Teaser: next blog post - "Chicken shit" (bet ya can't wait? )