The Smell of Success

My nose is big. My nose is powerful. It takes me to places I love. I can follow my nose to fairs and shows around the country. I can inhale the warm memories of my farm youth and I can choke on the smell of times gone bad.

When I close my eyes and draw a deep breath I can return to a different time; a time when the long days of a July summer were spent riding horses, feeding calves, mowing lawns and just being a kid out of school.

Your nose is the same. Not big maybe, but powerful. Of all of our senses, perhaps the sense of smell is our most wonderful. Oh sure, you could argue for any of the other senses, horse sense included and I'd probably agree with you. But go with me for a moment on a journey through the aroma of our country lifestyle.

Growing up on the farm you learn to use your nose as a veterinarian instrument. Once you've smelled the rancid odor of a horse with thrush in its hooves, you don't soon forget. You also don't forget that salty smell of sweat that is absorbed into the saddle pads on a hot summer day. Tack rooms have an ambiance of leather and latigos. Horses have a scent all their own. They smell different than cattle and of course they smell great compared to pigs.

Now that I have mentioned pigs, I know some of you will say they don't smell bad. Well folks, they do. They stink. Not the pigs themselves, they're fine. It is their fecal matter that's the problem. I think it has some chemical compound in it that makes it radioactive. Nuclear waste if you ask me. If you spend much time with pigs, the smell is absorbed into your skin and it follows you around. It is like a porcine pheromone that attracts other pig people. That’s why folks in the pig barns just show pigs. It is a natural attraction, their noses brings them together.

I have a special pair of rubber boots that I wear only when I'm cleaning the pig barn. Really they're a pair of hip waders, you know, the kind duck hunters wear. They come up to the middle of my chest. If they would make a pair of rubber boots that could cover your head when you clean the pig barn, I'd probably have those. Instead, I'm real careful not to splash too much water on the walls. I don't want to get any porcine perfume behind my ears.

I remember the smell of my show steers. I liked smelling their breath when we would lay together in the show barn. Their breathe was laced with the sweet scent of molasses and corn. In an odd sort of way the remnants of their ruminant effervescence smelled good. You knew the steers were comfortable. They didn't hunger for food or attention. They were at peace with themselves and their dinner (regurgitated as it was). I too was at peace.

Sheep really don't have a smell. I can't recall any wonderful childhood memories generated by the smell of my sheep. However, I can remember the time I was teaching high school agriculture and we had a bunch of old ewes decide to check out of this world. The seemed to clump up together at the bottom of the school farm pasture and die. By the time the student feeder said, "Mr. Vernon, some of the ewes aren't coming to the feeder," it was too late. They were blowed up bigger than the Goodyear blimp. They looked like a little fleet of wooly blimps. Their udders looked as if they were in full milk with a set of triplets. (Actually, more like a vet’s fully inflated rubber glove.) When we took the tractor with the front bucket to pick them up, the kid didn't hit the brakes soon enough and one of them exploded. I 'bout lost my lunch with the stench that engulfed us. My eyes burned and I had this gag reflex going on. It was bad. I still crinkle my nose when I think about that dreadful (or dead full) day.

The sheep showbox on the other hand has a very definite smell. The mix of lanolin, sheep dip and clipper oil has a manly smell. Not some Yankee candle, vanilla flavored, Martha Stewart smell. Nope, a sheep showbox smells like a cross between a Briggs and Stratton motor and a hundred year-old Bourbon. It will singe the hairs on your nose if you breathe too deep. Some folks can get intoxicated with the smell of a sheep showbox. I do not.

Growing up on the farm there all kinds of smells. Close you eyes, take a deep breath and travel in time to the day the alfalfa field across the road was just cut. Or, the refreshing scent of the moments after a summer storm has passed. Take the mental step into the feed room and smell the grain. It may remind you of your youth or it may leave you shaking your head when you think about how much money you spend feeding your animals.

Close you eyes and remember the musty, "Old Spice" scent of your grandpa. Smile and take a sniff of your mother's country kitchen on a Saturday morning. Smell the bacon and listen to the sizzle. That's the simple life.

Use your nose to lead in the right direction. If it smells good, go there. If it smells bad you'll know what to do. Use you nose to find the smell of success.