Rural Life

Posted by: Officer DBL on 17 March 2010

I have been spending some time in the garden shifting soil from the compost heap to a new bed I have sorted out. It was quite pleasant work, the sky cloudy but bright, the Mournes a delight to look at and the temperature just nice for the work.

I have now sought refuge indoors as a farmer has just decided to spray slurry over the field next to our place and the smell is so bad, even the cats have come inside! TG rain is forecast for tomorrow so the slurry will be diluted, but it is a complete pain that my day in the garden has been forestalled. Frown

Brad
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Joe Bibb
Good healthy sinus clearing stuff. Don't be such a girl. Winker
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Officer DBL
It's nothing to sniff at you know! Winker
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Roy T
Rural Life, good for a holiday but I wouldn't wish to live there.
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Mike-B
Working on Paddy's day, shame on the man, he should be skulling back pints.
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by JMB
I feel the same irritation with garden pyromaniacs who seem to appear on fine days and spoil an otherwise pleasant day in the garden and the fresh air.

And don't get my wife started when it happens on washing days ....

Mike
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Officer DBL
quote:
Originally posted by Mike-B:
Working on Paddy's day, shame on the man, he should be skulling back pints.


Maybe I should have mentioned that my efforts were being supported by a can or two of Smithwicks, so it was not all work Winker
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Mark Dunn
To quote Mrs. Adela Bradley:

"I've always thought of the countryside as a rather soggy place, where birds and animals wander around uncooked".

Best regards,
Mark Dunn
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by u5227470736789439
Only those who grew up in the countryside - or so it seems to me - actually know how to appreciate the simple and robust pleasures that living in a rural setting brings.

The incoming "townies" - once installed - simply set about turning their little corner of their imagined rural idyll into a sanitised little bit of ghastly suburbia. And complain too much about the simple fact that food production involves smells from manure, flies, people working long hours in the set season, and so on.

Never the twain should ideally meet - the "towny," and the "country bumpkin!"

I believe there should be a doubling of income tax rates for "townies" who want to dwell in the countryside and then whinge about its roughness!

This could easily be managed if there were a limit of less than say five miles on the daily commute, before a doubling of the tax rate be tripped!

Okay, I simply don't like the "town" or most "townies!"

ATB from George
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Officer DBL
I have been called many a name in my life to date, but townie is a first. That I am deemed a whinger too; a creater of a sanitised bit of surburbia; and should be taxed doubly for my choice of domestic setting rather takes the biscuit. Eek

Ironic perhaps that the rural idyll I am creating is a vegetable plot. Winker

Brad
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by JWM
quote:
Originally posted by GFFJ:
Only those who grew up in the countryside - or so it seems to me - actually know how to appreciate the simple and robust pleasures that living in a rural setting brings.

The incoming "townies" - once installed - simply set about turning their little corner of their imagined rural idyll into a sanitised little bit of ghastly suburbia. And complain too much about the simple fact that food production involves smells from manure, flies, people working long hours in the set season, and so on.

Never the twain should ideally meet - the "towny," and the "country bumpkin!"

I believe there should be a doubling of income tax rates for "townies" who want to dwell in the countryside and then whinge about its roughness!

This could easily be managed if there were a limit of less than say five miles on the daily commute, before a doubling of the tax rate be tripped!

Okay, I simply don't like the "town" or most "townies!"

ATB from George


Ah, you've been to where I live George? Winker
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by BigH47
quote:
Only those who grew up in the countryside - or so it seems to me - actually know how to appreciate the simple and robust pleasures that living in a rural setting brings.



Au contraire George, being a townie from West London, the simple pleasure of being "in the sticks" is most enjoyable. "The Country" is only a few minutes drive/bike/walk away. Must have sensed this early as we seemed to spend most of our playtime off on Hounslow Heath, "dodging Highwaymen" before some one else says it. Smile
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by u5227470736789439
Dear Officer DBL,

You were complaining about slurry! A perfectly normal rural phenomenon produced in the attempt to feed the urban population at a price they seem willing to pay for food. If you worked with the stuff from your childhood, and gained your living at least in part from dealing with it then you would simply have finished the garden without whinging!

I think you complain too much!

But truth to tell "townies" who create and complain are a confounded nuisance in the rural setting! To be honest my version of what many "townies" are called by those who earn their living in the countryside is much less polite. My point about taxation was actually tongue in cheek - by way of explanation ...

I suspect your post would go down much better with other rural dwelling "townies" than anyone rooted in a real understanding of rural life.

Best wishes from George
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Officer DBL
quote:
Originally posted by GFFJ:


Best wishes from George


Bit of a contradiction there I feel. Roll Eyes
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by u5227470736789439
Not at all! I wish that "townies" would learn to love the coutryside for what it is, rather than try to convert it to what they dreamed it might be!

Rough in some ways. Totally unsentimental, and devoid of illusions. Blunt in some ways, but better speak the truth and shame the devil - hey?

ATB from George
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by Officer DBL
The only person in this thread who has mentioned converting the countryside is YOU. For my part I was remarking on the strength of the odour, not the farming practice. Roll Eyes

I am off to my bed now, and maybe you ought to consider doing the same before your agitation unbalances you and you fall off your soap box! Smile
Posted on: 17 March 2010 by u5227470736789439
Yes but the odour of slurry is a fact of rural life, and not something for which you can expect any sympathy from someone born and reared in the country. As I say, as a "rural dwelling towny" your post might garner some sympathy from those in a similar position, or "town dwelling townies" but none at all from a son of the soil.

Call a spade a spade, your comment marks you out as a "towny" and a "whinger!" Like it or lump it in that respect!

If you don't like it, move to the town and stop whinging!

Do I whinge about the milder smell of the Saint Johns [Worcester] sewer farm? No, but sometimes it is almost as pungent as the "almost delightful" scent of slurry [rather a good way to improve soil condition and also rather ecologically sustainable as well], but I don't post such sad self-pitying nonesene here except on response to something as sad as what you have posted! Poor man!!

ATB from George
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by DAVOhorn
Several years ago, while in the blissful state of matrimony, i lived in a small village in north suffolk.

My back garden backed onto Lord Somerleyton's farm land.

He rotated crops so one year sweet corn the next sweet peas and the next i forget. But anyway at harvest a few bloody great harvesters would amble into the fields and strip the crop in about 4 hours overnight. Say 3 in the morning till 7 am. The lights on the harvesters were like daylight.

Thing was we the day before would nip into his fields and stock up on the crop for the freezer.

Fair trade i would say, 3-4 hours nuisance per year for wonderful farm fresh food.

Many years ago, 1977, i worked on a farm in Liskeard Cornwall for a month. Great fun and hard work with long hours. But for me 4 weeks in November was too much and i hightailed it to family in Edinburgh and city life.

regards David
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by Mike-B
quote:
If you don't like it, move to the town and stop whinging!


Right on

My area has its fare share of townies & weekend cottagers, many of which don't sit comfortably with their new rural life.
Laughable complaints from shocked newbies we have listed in our Parish .............
Sheep "baa" during lambing - genuinely thought to be a distress call
Cows (moving fields) shit all over the road
Cows ruin property grass verges & flowers
Muck spreaders smell
Pig farms make a noise
Pig farms smell
Cockerels make a noise early in the morning & sometimes all night
Tractors block country roads
Tractors make roads dirty
Harvesting makes dust
Foxes turn over dustbins
Deer eat roses
Deer are dangerous road hazards & damage cars (nothing said of the broken deer)
Church bells are noisy early sunday mornings
Pubs make a noise
Pubs have lock-ins
Pubs have outside gardens that people use during the evening
Pubs play Aunt Sally (Oxferd area pub garden game)

The list goes on
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by JMB
Give the man a break - all he did was rue the loss of a day in the garden. The reactions from some of the rather self righteous and patronising defenders of the olde sod is a tad over the top.

Mike
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by BigH47
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Brian:
Give the man a break - all he did was rue the loss of a day in the garden. The reactions from some of the rather self righteous and patronising defenders of the olde sod is a tad over the top.

Mike


What an unusual reaction form this forum?

My lifestyle,my upbringing, my bike , my TT ,my DAC, my fave PF album, etc is better than yours and you are a............(insert derogatory name) if you disagree.

Mike-B we get most of that and we live in a town(ish). Don't get me started on tractors.
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by Derek Wright
Slurry spreading is one of the signs that winter is nearly over and we can look forward to a disappointing spring and a non Bar-B-Q summer.
An interesting periodic festival is injecting the land with processed slurry from the sewage water treatment works.
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by BigH47
They don't mind the townies shit then?
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by PhillyB
Would much rather have a lung full of shit fumes, than a lung full of obnoxious city car/bus/lorry CO.
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by Mick P
Chaps

I have just booked the flights for a 5 week spell in my Spanish shack. The one thing you get in Spain is fresh air and no smells or pollution.

This little island of ours is over populated but you do not realise how bad it is until you go somewhere else.

I will be flying into Murcia airport and there is no traffic what so ever. After one mile, you hardly see any other cars at all.

Compare that to British airports where it is bedlam getting in and out.

Regards

Mick
Posted on: 18 March 2010 by Mike-B
Being an expert in muck spreading Winker & for the benefit of townies;
Muck (semi solid cattle bedding straw & shit) should not be that odious, it should be stored & matured & sweet smelling & have a reasonably pleasant earthy country smell.
Slurry (liquid piss & shit) as per the OP, when its fresh stinks like the rear end of the devil - there are controls on its application, more concerned with water pollution than smell - it should be stored for a period until it has matured & becomes less aggressive in pollution & disease terms, that period also reduces the smell considerably
But as we all know is often applied when "too" fresh.

I trust your cat is recovered Officer DBL & that the Smed'iks went down better than the slurry & that paddy's day has not resulted in too much of that overhung feeling.

Now I need to get on & turn me compost heap