Farming is Common Scents

I love the smell of skunk in the morning.

I'm not some olfactory oddball.  To be sure, odeur de Pepe Le Pew is not the odiferous equivalent of fresh baked bread or cookies fresh from the oven.  But it's a scent that doesn't offend me, and it reminds me that I'm someplace where wildlife is always right outside the door.  Especially during mating season.

In the spring and early summer, Virginia skunks give opossums a run for the title of Worst Road Crossers.  Unlike opossums, flattened skunks release a WMD-dose of concentrated scent that bathes passing cars like a hot piece of toxic Saran Wrap.  Closing your vents won't help.  Essence of skunk will penetrate Porsches and Pintos with equal potency.

Experience has taught me to roll down the windows, man-up and ride it out.  So vicious is the nasal assault I envision the skunk quoting Captain Ahab as it's crushed by a passing car: " ... from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my least breath at thee."

Still, I don't mind.  Les and I reared two long-time soccer players, and we know nothing stinks worse than a pair of shin guards or keeper gloves after a long day of tournament soccer.  After countless matches, we've tolerated adolescent burps, flatulence and never-been-washed lucky keeper jerseys in the car on the way home.  But the shin guards and keeper gloves come off before the ride and go in the trunk.  It's a stink that could peal the green off a John Deere at 50 paces.

So for us, most farm scents have become backdoor reminders (pun intended) of rural freedom and Earthy living. 

So has blood.  In fact, my motto is: If you ain't bleedin', you ain't farmin'.  I'm probably the only farmer out here who says that, but it's appropriate.  Put up enough fence, hammer enough nails and wrestle with enough goats and you're gonna bleed.  But for me, bleeding is an every-day byproduct of farming.

I wear shorts about 90 percent of the time I'm working outside, and that includes all but the coldest days of the winter.  I also bleed easily.  Even a horsefly bite will cause a rivulet of blood to trickle down my leg and create a crimson delta in my white sock. 

And since our farm is chock-a-block with trailing blackberry vines - insidious, thorny monsters that rise from the Earth to claim passers by like the botanical undead - my legs look like scratching posts at a cheetah farm.

But I've learned to accept the blood and scars as just another byproduct of farming.  Like getting zapped by the electric fence.

We have a lot of electric fence, and depending on several factors, it could be carrying between 6,000 and 10,000 volts.  Yeah baby, I'm talking Back to the Future kind of voltage.  What's scary is that I don't really mind getting zapped.  Now, lest you think I've already lost too many brain cells, I'm not saying I like getting zapped; I just don't mind it.  That's good, since it happens several times a week.

Worrying about the electric fence is like worrying about the black widow spiders, ticks and poison ivy.  If I worried about it, I wouldn't get anything done.  So, when I work around the fences I try to avoid contact, but if it happens - Yeeeeee Ha! - I revel in the adrenalin surge and the taste of ozone in my mouth.  It's like getting slapped by a beautiful woman.  It stings like hell for a second, but it wakes you up, you forget your knees are killing you and you can't help but think it was worth it.

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