The Scent of Spring

Spring has finally arrived in Rhode Island!  You can tell by the warm breezes, the verdant green grass, and the splashes of yellow daffodils and purple phlox.  For me, however, Spring does not truly declare her presence until I can smell it in the air. 

Those of you who live in rural areas know what I mean.  Manure.  Cow manure.  Chicken manure.  Pig manure.  Each spring industrious farmers pull their spreaders out of mothballs and disperse the winter's accumulated supply on their fields.  Some, like my parents, have no home-grown source of the natural fertilizer, so they truck it in from nearby dairy or poultry farms. 

Now most people despise the smell currently permeating our environs.  I am not most people.  I love the smell of manure.  As a child, we raised replacement heifers and had a couple milk cows.  Most of my earliest, and fondest, memories happened in and around the barn, surrounded by the warm scent of cattle . . . and their by-products.  

I can remember my great-grandfather cleaning the barn each morning and night (and sometimes in the afternoon).  There was a method to his work.  First he'd have to use his hoe to find the scuttle (a small board that covered a hole in the gutter behind the cows that opened over the manure pit). 

Next came the tricky part: removing the scuttle.  Gramp always made it look easy: one fluid movement and he had the scuttle up out of the gutter and on the floor in front of his feet.  If you weren't careful, however, the scuttle would slide sideways as you lifted it and slip ignominiously into the manure pile below.  Whoever dropped it had to go get it.  Let's just say manure pits are not known for being either dry or sanitary.

After successfully removing the scuttle, Gramp would deftly sneak the hoe under the heifer's belly, clean off the platform, and replace the scuttle.  If one of the heifers was lying down, Gramp gently tapped her on the back.  "Git up, Boss," he'd say.  She'd lurch forward, and Gramp would repeat the process.

Looking back, successfully cleaning the barn was one of the many rights of passage on the farm, a sign that you were growing up and getting ready to take your place in the adult world.  (Not that I remember viewing it in quite that light at the time . . .!)

It is, I think, the "growing" idea that makes me unable to declare it "Spring" until the farmers start their spreading.  For when I smell that scent, I suddenly feel the yellow sun beating on my bare head and the brown earth crumbling beneath my bare feet.  I have the urge to unpack tank tops, shorts, and sunglasses.  I can suddenly hear the killdeer calling across the fields and taste a spring rain on my lips. 

I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is time for the rye to start putting on height, the grass to start greening in the pasture, and the ground to start warming for the seeds.  It is as if the life bursting all around me grabs hold of my very soul and demands that it, too, shed winter's layers and break forth with tender newness. 

Very few people will likely agree with me on this issue, even those who share a farm heritage.  I know of two who do, however.  This morning my kids and I were driving through gorgeous eastern Connecticut to see my sister.  We were passing by a dairy farm when one of them said, "Manure!"  Immediately, and in unison, they both cheered: "The smell of Spring!" 

I've never been prouder.