As I sat down in the car, I noticed a funny smell. Not the kind of funny that would make want want to laugh, but more the kind of funny that would encourage one to gag.

What could that be? I wondered to myself as I started to drive to work. It was Thursday morning and, as I rolled down the windows despite the very brisk air on that rainy day, I remembered something important. The night before I had picked up the seven bags of organic fertilizer that I purchased several months before at the church auction.

One of my friends at church had taken the whole amount purchased, some 20 bags, to his barn in Ennice sometime right after the auction. I had asked him to bring it to church on Wednesday night, where I moved it from the back of his work truck into the trunk of my little Honda. Seven bags, each weighing 50 pounds, were quite a load for my little car.

However, since it was nearly 10 p.m. before we got home, it was too late to unload it. Then the following morning, the weather had (once again) turned off wet. I'm supposing that the high humidity had set off some of the fertilizer's native smells, which left my car feeling somewhat aromatic.

When one reads about organic fertilizer, it might appear to be some sort of joking reference to pure manure. But in this case, it would not be a joke.

The fertilizer is made from chicken droppings and litter that have been composted and pressed into a pellet form. While they have been changed into a new form, they are still what they always were. Obviously, the ammonia levels and odors are much lower, but the truth of the matter is this: manure is manure.

Right after that auction late last fall, someone asked me what I bought. "All I ended up with was a pile of crap," I responded honestly.

But with the recent moves away from chemical fertilizer and our growing consciousness about the benefits of organic gardening, I'm looking forward to growing with it this year.

That having been said, I had to park my car on Thursday at lunch to prevent driving around in the rain with my windows down. The following day at lunchtime, my youngest daughter was outside and she climbed into my car the way she sometimes does. I laughed heartily as she involuntarily gagged after asking me, "What's that stinky smell?"

As I started moving the bags from my trunk to my truck tailgate, I rolled down all the windows and left the trunk open as I went inside to eat lunch.

Afterwards, I came back out and unloaded the bags into my building, but the car still wasn't back to its former rosy-smelling self.

Later that evening I was at the office when the EMS building fire was called out on the scanner and I responded to the scene to take pictures for the newspaper. I was driving my truck still, since the car hadn't fully aired out. As the call came out, I thought it might be a drill or a test or something. Of all the places that might catch on fire, that definitely wasn't something I expected. One might believe that a private residence was on fire, but the EMS building? Upon the second page, the dispatcher announced that the building was engulfed in flames, which made me realize that the call was not a test or a drill, but the real, terrible thing.

Luckily, I found out later, no one was inside at the time.

When I got there about three minutes later, flames were coming through the roof as I walked around the scene snapping pictures. The wind was howling and I got an old camouflage coat out of the truck, along with my ball cap, to help shield some of the wind.

By the time I got home, I was covered in the smell of smoke. Fires like that, with all sorts of things burning, leave a peculiar smell on the clothes. It's not pleasant, but it's not as bad as the inside of a Honda after the trunk has been filled with fertilizer on a rainy day.

Thankfully, the weather unexpectedly broke the following morning and one of my friends and I got to go to breakfast at a local restaurant before going fishing. I ordered the special, which had some pretty good gravy and biscuits included. There's nothing like a healthy breakfast to make one appreciate a good morning out in the cold. After we had fished for a couple hours in Piney Creek, I waded up to a bridge over the water and accidentally got my line snagged in a hole. Rather than just cut the line, I did what I always do: I walked over to the spot and tried to free my hook. Since I was having difficulty, I decided to go upstream a few steps and try a different angle. However, as I stepped on an algae-coated rock, my felt-footed waders went flying out from under me and I found myself lying on a rock partially in the water in less than a second.

Being more embarrassed than injured, along with the obvious shock of ice cold water, I jumped up quickly and saw my favorite hat floating to my left. I grabbed the hat and then turned to get my fishing pole, which I suddenly realized was no longer in my hand.

That's when I discovered that my faithful fishing companion was nowhere to be found. Wet and cold at this point, I decided to give up the search. There's nothing like soggy drawers to make a man want to go home quickly. As I drove home, all the while realizing just how far it can be from Piney Creek to Sparta in wet clothes, I was reminded by my fishing buddy how lucky I was to not be hurt. He also mentioned that he had started to bring his camera along. I for one was glad he didn't.
 

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