You smell cow shit… I smell a working land. 🐮

You smell cow shit… I smell a working land. 🐮

A few weeks back I was driving through Madison County smelling what you normally smell in farm country – dirt, mud, manure and fermented grain. Farmers hauling out their hundredth load of manure and bed pack from the barnyard, recycling the rich organic matter back into the earth so it can grow more corn and silage, more hay and alfalfa for high quality forages that power that cows thar make the milk and the steaks and the beef we all enjoy.

Dairy country has its smells especially during the fall and spring when fallow fields are rejuvenated with nutrients which help them grow. Fresh slurry can particularly tickle ones nose. But the smells of the working land represents a rural life sustained, a land put to use, a healthy and diverse habitat that remains largely open and green.