episode 728 STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES—gathering horse manure to grow mushrooms
alan skeoch
Feb.1, 2023
“Alan, this is stupid…really dumb.”
“What?”
“Gathering all that horse manure”
“Need about a ton of horse manure , figure.”
“You are going to wreck our car…how much does that load on the roof weigh?”
“I figure about 400 pounds….8 x 50…roof should be OK”
“And inside the car?”
“Less…lots of room for you and the coonhound”
“If people knew how stupid you can be they must wonder about our marriage.”
“Wait a bit…wait until the spawn arrives.”
“Spawn?”
“We are going to grow mushrooms in the spring and summer….Horse manure and mushroom spawn is all we need.”
“Why?”
“Something to do in the winter while you ride your horse….I will gather up the hoseballs.”
“Wacko!”
“Lorne and Carol will let me have the teams horseballs as well. ‘Road apples’! Four or five trips to the city
with loads like this should do it…a ton of horseballs dumped in that big box I’ve built at the back of our lot.
No one knows…not much smell. Actually I like the smell of horse manure…better than pigs snd cows.”
“What if the neighbours see the car looking like this…roof loaded with horse manure.”
“Who would believe it?”
NOTE: I spent the month of February that year (1970’s) hauling horse manure from farm to city. No one asked what was in
the sacks on the car roof. Sort of strange as I expected questions. No police stopped…no neighbour questioned.
It was winter…February…when most people are indoors. These were great days. While Lorne forked manure
onto his bob sleigh for the horses to haul it to the back field, I rescued the horse dung. Somewhere I had read
that horse manure makes great mushrooms. And that was all I needed. Recipe? A ton of horse manure and
a package of mushroom spores from Dominion Seed House. Dump the stuff in the box and wait for my
mushroom crop.
Well it did not quite work as planned. I checked the mushroom coffin regularly….days and days, weeks and
weeks. No mushrooms. Then around June…months later …there was one tiny little mushroom. One goddamn
mushroom! After all my labour. Not even sure it was an edible mushroom. Just like everything else in life,
mushroom growing demands skill. That was something I did not have.
Not all was lost. I loved gathering horse manure in the winter time. Marjorie would take Spartacus, our estrogen
gelding, up and down the fifth line. We rescued him from certain death. Those estrogen mares were chained up
in barns with tubes hooked to their arses to gather their urine. Why? For Birth control pills. Terrible life for those
mares. Had to be pregnant mares for some reason. Their colts were of no use. We rescued Sparky. Called
him Spartacus after the slave in Roman history.
Imagine this wagon filled to the brim with manure destined for the far field. Imagine
sitting on top of the load bouncing along to the team’s version of Jingle Bells.
Sweet memories.
On some clear sunny winter days I even got a chance to ride across the snow clad fields with the loads
of manure. I think Lorne just kept the horses for that purpose. And he was pleased that we could do the
manure spring together. He never charged me for the horse manure. I thought it was free but now realize
it was a money crop that made the fields more productive.
Bottom line? I was a total failure as a mushroom grower. That puny little mushroom in the plywood
coffin was never harvested. Our car, A Renault 15, did have a special aroma. Maybe I should have
sent a note to France telling the car company to add a sentence in their brochure. “This car can
carry 400 pounds of horse manure on its roof without denting.”
Suppose Marjorie had married the Lawyers son in North Bay? Could he have
given her a better life. I think not.
Marjorie had many boyfriends. I met most of them. One even proposed to her at university. She refused
gracefully because she liked me better…a bit better. Now that, I realize, is hard to understand. Some women
marry with the expectation they can change their husbands. Marjorie never did this. Even when
our car, house, clothes had the faint smell of horse manure.
Was the mushroom failure the only failure in our lives? Not so. There were many failures. I built a
barn on the farm..it collapsed. I tried to make maple syrup using a Forth line forest. Some son of a
bitch shot our pails of the trees. We accepted a contract to grow cucumbers for Manthew Wells Rose
Brand pickles company of Guelph. We were laughed at and lost our investment. The company wanted
gherkins and we produced crooks and nubs and cucumbers as long as your arm…all of which were
dumped. Our payment for months of labour was less that $50. Our investment in a tractor and our
labour was a couple of thousand dollars. A failure. Even the tractor, a well used Farmal A, was a disaster
as I forgot to put anti freeze in the radiator and the hard winter cracked the block. Scrap. I loved that
tractor. Lots of failures in my life…in our lives. You would think I (we) would learn from these failures.
We never did. That’s what farmers must feel as their glowing expectations turn into broken dreams.
These fine bred horses did not come from Estrogen barns. They came from fine mares and stallions. Spartacus was not that lucky.
“Alan, you have given readers we are total failures at everything.”
“Right. We have had more success raising kids and dogs. But
readers like failures. More human. Everybody fails at one time or
another.
“If they do not fail. Have continual success in life. Guess what happens to them?”
“I do not know.”
“Neither do I.”
alan skeoch
ev. 1, 2023
“Marjorie, there seems to be a funny smell in the car these days”
“Look at the roof.”