The nastiest smell I've ever encountered

On the farm there is a never ending array of foul scents that can and will assault your nose. A cow lot kinda smells, a hog lot is worse. Noxious weeds find their way into hay and can catch you by surprise with their odor. The same goes with snakes and other small animals, who weren't quick enough to get out of the way of the hay baler. When you come by a few hours later or the next day and pick up the bale it smells like dead. That's a common phrase where I come from, 'smells like dead'. No further description needed, it never really matters what's kicked it, it all smells the same. The smell of death plays a factor in this story, but scale and time augmented the odor me and my brother came across. First...

Molasses is used as a supplement for cattle and you can present it and a host of other minerals and supplements to the animals in a variety of ways. Hard little blocks they lick, lapping up small amounts of the stuff with each pass. A slightly less dry version of the little blocks which comes in what amounts to like a ten or twenty gallon little tub. Or you can opt for a liquid form that comes in a big plastic tank. The liquid tanks are pretty inventive, as they have a lick wheel. The cow licks the wheel, it turns and the sticky molasses clings to the wheel and the wheel remains covered in the stuff. That is until the tank runs empty and you have to refill it. The idea of refilling the tank is where my older brother and I come in here.

An old busted lick tank.  You can't verify this, but it's sitting in about the same spot where this little story takes place.

A guy in a truck comes by and just fills it up, but our tank had sat empty for a long time and filled up with twenty or thirty gallons of rain over a period of... I don't know how long. Well our old man tasked Jake and I with dumping the water so he could get it refilled. From a technical standpoint this is a simple task, and we set about it without knowing what we were in for. We got over to the barn lot the tank was in and popped off the top. It's like a big lid. Immediately we were staggered by the smell. There had been a little bit of the molasses mixture still in the tank when it began to fill with rain. This sweet easy to get at source of sustenance was a fly magnet. Alas flies are stupid and while they found their way into the tank easy enough a great host failed to exit. It's hard to say, but I honestly think it might have been into the tens of thousands range on how many flies made up that foul soup that rippled in the bottom of the tank.

We stepped back to compose ourselves. Jake's plan, which was a good one, was simple enough, get under one side and dump it over away from us. Side by side we grabbed the lip of the tank and hefted it up off the ground, the brown rather thick liquid pooling at the far end. It was heavier than we thought and our leverage on the tank wasn't as good as it could have been. We dropped our edge and in a rush the water rolled back to our side of the tank splashing up into our faces. I gagged, turned made it a few steps and let loose whatever was in my stomach. I was a bit preoccupied, but I think Jake managed not to throw up. The smell was... well it's hard to describe; stagnate water, pounds of dead flies, mixed with what was left of the sweet smelling molasses, all fermented nicely in the tank for weeks if not months.

It was heavier than we initially thought, but we could dump it over, we knew that much. Jake got a little angry at me cause it took me a few minutes to settle myself enough to walk up to the tank alongside him. We had stirred it all up and now the smell was constantly emanating from the mess inside. I gave up about halfway through our second attempt, which really pissed Jake off. After another few minutes of pacing around I finally walked up to the tank and we upturned the damn thing. I can still see that shit spilling out onto the ground, uhhgg.

Promptly we got back over to the house and I jumped in the shower. It's been probably damn near twenty years and there has yet to be anything I've encountered that rivals that unholy stench.

Line 'O the day - July 9, 2008

The balance between being accommodating and being assertive is nearly impossible to maintain.
Or
Nice guys finish last because it’s a sacrifice they’re willing to make for the sake of others.


Present day note:
My best friend half hates me because of this aspect of my personality.

Line 'O the day - July 4, 2008

I don’t believe in God, because I don’t give a shit if anyone believes in me. And if, as they say, I am made in God’s likeness then my thoughts are akin to his, and he probably don’t give a rat’s ass if I believe in him or not.


Present day note:
Contradictions and half truths abound in this Line. At first I say I don't believe in God, but then sorta allow God the ability to not give a shit. Also I say I don't give a shit if others believe in me. That's kind of true. I'd prefer people like me, and wouldn't mind if a few folk on this Earth cared about me, but if they'd rather not buy stock in Zeb that's not a big issue.

Line 'O the day - June 21, 2008

I regret an ungodly number of instances and aspects of my existence, but when I look at the whole I don’t think I could feel better about it.


Present day note:
Hindsight may be 20/20, but it is also informative as a motherfucker. If you really take the time to learn from the past.

The high cost of child labor

I've already talked about being designed to work on the farm. A farmer has kids and while they get to be kids often enough they put them to work. And as one of those kids you're willing to drive a tractor, stack hay or feed the cattle whenever you have to. You might bitch about it sometimes, but adults gripe about working just as much if not more. The inherent problem of being the farmer and putting your young'n to work is that they aren't exactly what you'd call a skilled laborer yet.

Me and my brothers cost the farming operation thousands of dollars over the years. At fifteen or a little older your ability to really think ahead and see potential problems (or just your surroundings) isn't fully developed. My brothers might claim they didn't rack up that big of a damage bill, but they're liars if they do. I myself can remember a number of instances where I tore the shit out of equipment, or didn't pay attention to what I was doing and wasted a days work doing something that would mean I'd have to redo it all the next day, or worse the old man would have to fix what I screwed up.

A small example, I was going to clean out the radiator on the tractor. This is a simple task, you just take a little air jet valve on the end of a compressed air hose and blow the dust and debris out of the radiator. The pump for the air tank was in this little shed and so I pulled up to the shed and was going to stick the front of the tractor just inside the door. I pulled a little too far in and the tractor's exhaust pipe caught the top of the door and broke right off. It's a simple mistake that a normal person would make, but a teenager is a bit more prone to such accidents. And it cost dad a couple hours trying to weld the exhaust back on.

A more costly example which I think cost nearly a couple thousand dollars to fix involved me, a hay mower, and a manhole cover. I was mowing hay in a small field that was sort of in town. So there was a sewer line that ran under the property. Now I knew the manhole cover was there, I was shown where it was. I just misjudged how far away it was from me and the tractor. I figured I'd hit it on the next round, but I caught the end of the mower on the heavy metal disk and it wasn't pretty. This is a sophisticated piece of machinery that costs tens of thousands of dollars and I quite nearly broke it in half.

In both of these and every other instance where I cost time and money, dad never got mad. I mean I was always aware of his dissatisfaction with having to deal with whatever the hell I broke, but besides a heavy sigh and an undirected 'what the hell, boy' he never gave me too hard a time about these things when they happened (after the fact he'd talk a lot of shit though). And while mom and dad's bottom line was aided by having three able bodied sons to put to work, their profit margin was constantly being undercut by our youthful inadequacies. And I suppose if those unexpected costs of child labor were too much they'd have gone about their business another way.

Line 'O the day - June 19, 2008

I like it, but it wouldn’t nearly be my favorite; it’s in the court, but it sure as fuck ain’t the king.