It happened this way. For several days I had been smelling something when I was in the back yard. I had originally thought the neighbors dogs were the cause of the smell. It at times smelled like dog manure and at times smelled kind of like a sewer. I looked in the ditch behind the house and there is some water in the ditch but it was moving, so it was not stagnated.
It was very annoying to go to the back yard and be bothered by this unknown bad smell. I had even thought about calling someone from the city to see if they could determine the reason for the smell.
This past Saturday my first wife and I went to one of the local home centers to purchase some tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and bell peppers. This year I insisted that all the tomatoes be the same variety. I do not like the odd shaped or the tomatoes that are a different color when ripe. To see a ripe tomato that is yellow, just isn’t right.
Returning home with plants in hand I proceeded to get in my recliner and take a well-deserved nap. Arising refreshed and re-energized I sprang from the chair and rushed to the Ford’s small garden spot, to plant said plants (being on a fixed income we can’t have a large garden).
First I removed some grass from the edge of the garden. Then I proceeded to get on my hands and knees and crawl around the garden planting the tomatoes and peppers. Even though it only took fifteen minutes or so, this planting process seemed as if it took hours on this poor old retired senior citizen.
At one point I was able to stand up with the help of the fence post. While I was hanging on to the fence post in an effort to keep this old body from falling to the ground in a heap, I noticed that the smell seemed to be much stronger here in the garden spot.
Have you ever smelled a dead person’s body after they have been laying in a field dead for a week or so? I haven’t either, just thought I would ask. That was the smell coming from the neighbor’s yard. Our neighbor has a kid’s swimming pool, I believe it was originally put there for their dogs (you know, plastic, round and about 6 feet across) in the back corner of their yard. That back corner is next to the Ford’s garden. I took a close look at the pool. It always has a few inches of dirty water in it and I thought possibly it was the stagnated water providing the aroma.
The black water wasn’t the only thing that was providing that aroma, there was a large dead bird in the pool.
I pointed it out to the female subject who lives there, and she said they knew of it, they thought it was a hawk, and she had told her husband that he should call someone about it. Call someone?
I noted that they probably did not want their dogs drinking from the stagnated pool with a dead hawk in it, thinking that might cause them to clean the pool and dispose of the dead body. She commented that she did not think the dogs drank from the pool. It is good to have nice neighbors. Photo to follow.
Click to enlarge, if you dare!
I did get everything planted, and I tested the sprinkling system. The sprinkling system works well as long as the wind isn’t blowing too hard.
May those who live next door to you, actually be neighbors!
Don Ford
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