[coder2]

ROFL... When my hubby read this article to me yesterday, I couldn't stop laughing ----

Where do I start ?? Are people today so dumb that they need a "scratch & sniff cowpie" to know that rural areas have their own particular aroma ???

Leave it to the gubment to find a solution for these nansy-pansy whiners...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!

[Vermonter]

Are people today so dumb that they need a "scratch & sniff cowpie" to know that rural areas have their own particular aroma ???

YES!

The people who move to the country to escape the noise and traffic of the city are just exposing themselves to a new set of things to complain about.

Unfortunately, the farmers usually lose the resulting battles and are eventually forced out of business (mostly due to economics)

[sarasota]

I've often wondered about the viability of building a home on formerly cultivated land--the pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and so on that build up in the soil.

[Desdemona]

And then there's the landfills....

MERRY CHRISTMAS

[tamikamaria]

A freshly cut alfalfa field or just-tilled soil might cause odors.

Huh? Those are the good smells. Hate to think what they would do if they smelled something really stinky, like a pig barn that hasn't been cleaned in a while. Now that will knock your socks off.

[bigfootbob]

The area around my farm is growing rapidly. We had several "newbie" neighbors inquire about the smells and the noise from the peacock and pheasant aviary my kids have. The peacocks call freaks the city folks out. I see battles looming.

[RebelBanker]

The county I live in has "right to farm" laws on the books to prevent people from suing farmers over such things. Sadly, they have to do that to protect the farmers.

The only exception was some dumba$$ farmer who brought in a whole load of chicken manure to use as fertilizer. Problem was that the manure was chock full of fly eggs and larvae - the whole county had a plague of biting black flies for an entire season. The county smacked him for creating a public health hazard.

[William Terrell]

The brochure is modeled after a similar one in Ottawa County, Mich. Eventually, Stearns officials also hope to copy a "scratch-and-sniff" picture of a cowpie.

I grew up in rural Alabama, where cow pastures abound. To smell a cow patty you have to get on your knees and put your nose right down to it. Even a fresh one hardens over in a day and you don't smell it at all.

Now, around a large cattle operation, the accumulated smell may be detectable, but even the most sensitive newly-moved gets used to it in one summer. In the winter there is no smell.

[rintense]

I happen to know a lot about Ottawa County, Michigan. And the whole pull to get people to move to farmland is a joke- its noting more than a well designed ploy to destroy farmland and build cookie cutter subdivisions. I once marveled at the number of farms and old, pristine farmhouses in Ottawa County. Now, I only shake my head in disappointment as one of the most charming counties in Michigan falls victim to 'progress'. Whatever. It just depresses me to see so many farms disappear.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

I moved from a downtown apartment to a house in the country across the road from a farm this Spring - and I love it, smells and all!

[1Old Pro]

It amazes me how many people move next to farms and then complain about the sounds and smell and the tractor noise etc. The very same idiots are pushing the "open space" concept where farms are preserved, as long as it's not next door.

People's behaivor is sometimes all too predictible.

[open mind-closed fist]

It's funny, growing up in the city, we called this "fresh country air". And, we were damn happy every time we got to smell it because it meant we were fishing or hunting -- having fun. It smelled like freedom to most city kids.

[Capriole]

I am so heartily tired of this S***.

Suburbanites read Country Living magazine and think that living in the country consists of plunking a brand new three-car-garage, vinyl-sided McMansion down in the middle of a field and watching the children frolic with lambs. But when they actually move out to the sticks, they don't like country life so much, and rather than move back to the 'burbs, they demand that the 'burbs move out to them. They start whining that it's so far to go pick up a gallon of milk or rent a video; why can't they have a little strip mall a mile or so down the road? Why can't there be some fashionable shops? Why can't they have sewer and water hook-ups? For that matter, why can't the roads be widened so that their commute to their law offices is faster? And those hunters are such a disgrace, making the countryside so dangerous on autumn Saturday afternoons! And the farm vehicles are so tedious, too! The suburbanites were trying to drive little Morgan's hunter pony to a show the other morning and there was this combine, if you can imagine it, taking up the whole lane!

Of course, if they whine long enough the strip malls do start to appear. Then they have the same sort of crowding, congestion, and ugliness they were trying to escape from in the suburbs, and the relaxed rural community is gone. So are the farms, livestock, and country people; the only inhabitants are bleached-blonde real estate agents and antique dealers.

Yuppies who move to the country and then whine ought to be forcibly ejected and sent back to suburbia.

[Feckless]

I could not live within the city limits of any town again. My sister from DFW visits me and can't sleep at night. The night sounds (whiporwills, coyotes, bull frogs, etc) scare her to death. She misses the ambulance and police sirens and the occasional shot in the night.

[MarkL]

Don't need no stinking "scratch and sniff" cards! Just have anyone thinking about this stuff take a trip out to Garden City, KS. There are feed lots on 3 sides of the city... No matter what direction the wind is blowing, it's blowing across a feed lot!

Mark

[SierraWasp]

Hay farmfriend! What say you? Pungent Ping!!!

[EagleMamaMT]

Read later.

[Indrid Cold]

Stearns County, MN is home to "Stearns County Syndrome", a real effect that's been studied and widely reported on in scientific journals. As I heard it when I lived there, people tend to stay and reproduce in the same small towns where they grew up, so the gene pool gets really small. Natives of Stearns County are NOT amused when you try to discuss the Syndrome. They do know what cow poop smells like, though.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[RippleFire]

bump

[B Knotts]

Are people today so dumb that they need a "scratch & sniff cowpie" to know that rural areas have their own particular aroma ???

Um. Yes.