An offensive odor....

It rained today. I love the smell in the air after a nice rain. Everything smells so fresh and clean. I was walking up the sidewalk to my building, still munching on lunch, enjoying the afternoon breeze, and checking out the rapidly changing leaf colors when I was suddenly assaulted by an offensive odor.....Eau' de hog lot. If you've ever been around a hog lot, you'll know what I'm talking about. I've never smelled anything so foul in my life (except for maybe our beta fish bowl when it didn't cleaned on a regular basis). Why must such a tasty animal smell so foul? The smell of a cow lot is a sweet perfume in comparison. I've jokingly said you could put my house in the middle of a cow lot and I'd be just fine. Of course, I'd have to build pedestrian-type bridges to get out because once spring hits and the ground thaws, a cow lot turns into...ok, I won't go there. It's pretty gross. You've been spared! But seriously, can't something be done to reduce the odor? Is it because of too many hogs in one lot? Too many years use of the same lot? I was raised on a farm. I fully support the livestock business, but please take my nose into consideration! I have to live here too!

It kinda makes me wonder if the special interest groups are correct in wanting to monitor the methane emanating from fecal matter (I believe that is the source of the stench). Is it harming our health to have massive hog corporations/businesses essentially in our backyard? The small time farmer might have raised a few hogs, but only for his own consumption. Like everything else in a capitalist society farming has become a business world where more is better...more is profit, but at what cost to ourselves? What effect is all of that fecal ick having on our environment? Does that high concentration of fecal matter ruin the land for future use? I know some use it for fertilizer for their fields and gardens (how gross is that? You homegrew those carrots? I'll pass, thank you very much), but not in a large quantity.

***Since I'm on an environmental kick here, I'd like to state that no trees were harmed in the creation of this blog.***