Tuesday, May 17, 2016

What's That Smell???

My chuckle for the day ... this should be posted outside every city!!  Honestly, I'm not sure if this is a "real" sign or not that I picked up off the internet.  Too bad more people don't READ the sign!!
I started off with a BANG yesterday, jumping out of bed at 5:00, flinging the doors and windows open to get some cool fresh air into the house.  As I was picking things up here and there, I noticed a slight smell.  Hmmmm ..... must be the trash, so I took it outside to the bin.

After feeding everyone, including myself, I could STILL smell something bad.  I instantly put on my detective hat and began circulating through the house, room by room.  I just couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Finally I gave up and headed out to the motorhome, geared up for cleaning.

That's when it hit me ... right smack dab between the eyes!!  If you've never lived in Central California, almond orchard capital of the world, you've never been subjected to the most horrible smell of spring there could ever be.  It permeates every nook and cranny.  CHICKEN MANURE!!

It's the rage ... every single orchard takes all that chicken manure from Foster Farms chicken growing operations and spreads it lovingly over hundreds and thousands of acres all around us.  To make it even better, it's HOT and there's NO breeze!!  And now my house smells JUST like a chicken coop!!

After closing all the doors and windows while using an entire can of Lysol and another of Fabreeze, I spent the next three hours dusting and cleaning the motorhome.  What a mess!!  I unloaded quite a bit of stuff I won't need during the summer, filling the empty spaces with propane bottles and making room for the barbecue.

I stripped the bed, washed everything, including all eight of the rugs I seem to get dirty all at once.  I'm pretty sure I killed six spiders ... I actually saw eight, but two escaped.  Today I'll start the engine and let it run while I clean out the fridge and scrub the sinks.

The good news is while watching absolutely nothing on television last night, I finished my schedule for this summer ... 18 stops in all.  I now have reservations at 11 of those stops, including my outlaw sister-in-law's house (my brother's ex-wife) in Boise.  Seems she lives on the fringes of the city, with a dead-end street motorhome parking spot next to her garage.  PERFECT!!  I may only have a 110 plug in, but the price is right!!

To top off an otherwise ho-hum day, I lit the barbecue again and cooked more chicken.  Appropriate I thought ... if my house is going to smell like chicken, I might as well EAT chicken!!  Practice makes perfect, but not this time.  I threw in a couple of breasts to chop up for salad, and they came out tough as nails.  Even the dogs had a hard time chewing on them (small pieces that is)!!

I have company coming for lunch, as well as CRAZY Elks Bingo tonight and I've got one more can of spray to use in order to mitigate the smell.   Maybe I'll just pass out nose plugs at the door for my company!!





6 comments:

  1. Oh yes, I remember that smell coming from the farmer fields in South Sacramento when there were still farms down there...

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  2. So, at your house right now my lousy sense of smell would be a welcome thing? :)

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    1. It would be a VERY welcome thing, Linda!! I had to breathe through my mouth all day!!

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  3. I went to school on the outskirts of Portland Oregon. There were farmers to the east of the school. Every spring they fertilized with chicken manure too. This was before air conditioning, so our windows were usually open. lovely smell.

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