I live in an area I have started calling “Couburbs”. Not quite country, not quite suburbs. A decade ago, it was all farms. Now it is more houses, albeit they are further apart than the McMansions in some other newer cities. Most folks around here own 3-plus acres so we DO have neighbors; we are just not close enough to smell what they are cooking for dinner.
There are a few farms left, though. In several different plots surrounding us are the corn fields of a dairy farm, which is roughly 2 miles away from us. The boys call it the “stinky cow farm” because one can tell we are driving past it just by the stench. It is commonly used as a landmark between them: “Are we home yet?” “Yeah-we are by the stinky cow farm.”
In the fall we can hear the combines harvesting the corn. In the spring we can hear the tractors plowing and seeding. It is kinda like a huge circle of feed for life that we get to see/hear every year.
The part that is not so cool is the fact that they spread the muck on the corn fields when they can. If you have never been in the middle of a rotten egg, you cannot appreciate the truly world-claiming odor that comes from a cow. As much as I like flinging open the windows in the spring to let in the fresh air, I first open the back door to see if "the coast is clear" on an olfactory level. Our first year here I made the mistake of wanting to air out the house and got a face full of the odor. The house smelled for days.
Guess what I woke up to this morning? The coast is not clear…
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