stinkin' up the neighborhood

Last weekend we had a big delivery.  Nothing fun mind you, just a big pile o' stinky cow poo.  

The smell was horrible and it brought back memories of a Halloween party gone bad.

  

Quite a few years ago I painstakingly made some mummy hands to be used as centerpieces for our annual Halloween party.  I loved how they turned out but they looked so plain just sitting on a table.  I envisioned a mound of dirt on each table with the hand coming up out of the dirt surrounded by candles.  The day of the party I run to Home Depot bright and early, buy the dirt and get it home and on the tables.  It quickly becomes apparent that I did not buy plain old, looks good on the Halloween tables dirt - I had bought manure-y dirt and it was now sitting on the middle of every table we had set up.

  

The memory is all somewhat of a blur at this point and I try not to remember it but I know that some tears were shed.  The tears were increased when friends would stop by to help with party preparations and exclaim as they made their way through our gate "What the heck is that smell"

My solutions you ask?!?!  I tried spraying down each poo pile with Lysol and carpet freshening powder.  As I type that now I realize how absurd that idea was but at the time I was desperate. Laugh if you want but you might have done the same thing if 80 people were heading your way and the party stunk like a farm.

Super party husband to the rescue.  Derek ran to Home Depot and got the right dirt.  He came home and dumped all the manure and then vacuumed any remains from the tablecloths. He then loaded the tables with dirt smelling dirt, added my mummy hands and candles and the tables turned out perfectly - just how I envisioned them.  The only downfall of it all...every time we vacuumed our house during the next few months it smelled of manure.  It was a small sacrifice to pay in order to pull off the party.

But back to our work day....


Derek, Nate, Davis and Donevan got to work hauling the stinky pile to the back yard so that we could mix it in with our less then ideal soil to get it ready for some planting.  The backyard stunk for a few days and we add a bunch of little buggies flying around but they along with the smell are gone now and we are on to our next step - planting!