A Stinky Situation

Yesterday, my sister Sarah and I decided to tackle the task of cleaning up our yard. I am an amateur plant enthusiast that decided to try my hand at organic gardening last year, due to the fact that I am allergic to so many chemicals.

Spring thaw this year hit our town a little hard, and for a while, our duplex was sitting in a huge puddle, very reminiscent of a small lake. During the worst of it, water was up to less than a foot below the floor, in our crawl space under our house. Consequently, we had blamed the foul odor emanating from the back of our house, on the flood we had experienced; never thinking that the real culprit for the, “oh man, something must have died” type of smell, was our own negligence.

I almost threw up when I came around the corner to get the garden stuff that the wind had scattered around. The smell was so bad that I was fully expecting to see bodies of dead animals back there. But as I came closer, I realized the true culprit. There it was…. our specially mixed fertilizer in baggies, in a plastic container that was partially open and filled with a little water.

After hollering, “Sarah, get out here and help me,” and running around the house quickly before I actually did lose the contents of my stomach, I heard my sister say, “Anna, if you puke on the driveway, you’re cleaning it up”! I then began to explain to her that it was not the flood that had caused our unusual aroma, but it was actually ANIMAL MANURE that caused the stench.

After a few rounds on the crazy cycle of “whose bright idea was it to stack it against the house,” and “you’re the one that always talks about wasting money” and “why throw it away when you can use it again next year”, we finally got down to the nasty business of cleanup.

After vigorously hosing everything down with a lot of soap and bleach, our yard no longer smelled like a herd of buffalo had visited and left their mark behind. The buckets we used are in the sun to dry, and my sister is quite emphatic about not using them inside the house….. I don’t know why!

We have laughed about this until our sides hurt, but we have learned quite a few lessons from this as well. Number one and most important – ALWAYS GET RID OF MANURE AT THE END OF SEASON!!!!! Number two, standing around blaming each other for what happened just means you have to smell the stink longer. It’s better to just get at the business of cleanup and chalk it up as lessons learned. Number three, no matter how nice you make it look – putting manure in plastic and making it look neat and organized, doesn’t change the fact that manure is still manure, and you can’t keep it covered for long! Putting off taking care of the problem, or pretending it doesn’t exist, just means you put up with the stink longer.

I am glad for the funny times in life. Our gardening escapades didn’t hurt anything but our own noses, and I am glad that God uses even manure to teach us life lessons.