No Bed of Roses

I have been meaning to write about the charms of living in an idyllic rural setting that I've been discovering recently. One of the things I've enjoyed most is becoming a bit of a locavore.

I buy potatoes at a local flea market and stop for corn at farms along the way home. My lovely neighbours are constantly bringing me locally grown produce to try. Hardly a day goes by that I step out the door without finding a sun-warmed peach, or fresh tomato or cucumber waiting for me on the hood of my car. It's like being visited by the food fairies. And all of it tastes much better than what I find at the grocery store.

But lately something has happened that made me never want to eat anything within a 100 km radius -or any radius really- ever again.

You know that smell you frantically roll your windows up against when you're driving through the country? That pungent aroma of manure and some kind of nostril poisoning chemicals combined that comes wafting across the fields while you crank the air conditioning and try to forget you ever smelled it? Well, for the past week or so, I have been trapped inside that smell. And I do not have air conditioning.

Anyway, besides giving me a constant headache and making me faintly nauseous 24/7, this stench monster has thrown a bit of a wrench in my whole gung-ho attitude about eating locally to benefit the environment etc.

If, as I suspect, local farmers are spreading more than manure, or even if it is just manure, how environmentally friendly is that really? I find it kind of disturbing that our food is grown out of something that smells like toxic waste.

This might be worth looking into.

Also worth looking into; breathing through my mouth.