The Smell of Horse Barns

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While journeying through America, starting Saturday morning, October 1, early, I will not be able to work on my quilt (machine pieced, hand quilted) for six weeks.  If the Passaic River floods like it did in early September, I will not be here to pump the water out of the basement before mushrooms start growing on the ceiling.

I will miss seeing my neighborhood in fall.  By leaving on October 1, I will not see the maple in front of my house turn gold, nor the hillside of the Watchung Mountain near my home turn shades of gold, red and bronze.  I will miss buying squash and local apples at my farmstand, a yearly ritual.  I will not be able to buy and roast locally grown parsnips, turnips, and beets.

But I will get to see farmland from here to Seattle as farmers settle it in for the winter.  I’ll see the Big Sky Country of Montana, the land that Lewis and Clark adventured through, in autumnal glory.  The great breadbasket of the Plains, the cornucopia filled with produce from farms, is neat to think about.  Many farms are struggling, but some are robust – like the ones in Wisconsin, where I just was last week.  When the wind came from a certain direction, the smell of cows (and the fertile fields where their manure is spread) was intense.  

My neighbor said yesterday she loved the smell of horse barns.