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the persistent smell of cow manure
Saturday, March 22 2025
location: the couch in the Shaque, Stingy Hollow Road, rural Augusta County, VA
I had the usual pattern of interrupted sleep last night, though this time I awoke at something like 2:30am instead of 5:30am. Again, the solution was to drink some wine, finishing the box of pinot grigio (20 glasses!) that I'd bought on Monday.
When I awoke again this morning, it was a little after 7:00am. The plan was to take care of any biological needs that I had, move my few remaining things (like my laptop computer and some food) to the Forester, and then begin my long drive back to Hurley. After eating a peanut butter sandwich and taking my last open-air crap of this trip (and using cold water from Folly Mills Creek as a stand-in for toilet paper), I carried a my stuff to the car and then went into the Creekside trailer to retrieve stuff I'd put in one of Don's two nasty little refrigerators (which are mostly full of orange juice and a Liquid Death flavor Don had bought and decided is undrinkable). Don was still in bed, completely covered by a blanket. Strangely, he was sleeping on his back with his knees up. As I was snapping some pictures of this strange scene, he pulled the covers off his head and I could tell him goodbye, wishing him well as "Lord of Creekside."
The weather was considerably colder than it had been for the past few days, and it stayed generally cold for the entire drive, falling to a low of 37 degrees early this afternoon as I crossed the Appalachian ridges between Harrisburg and Scranton, Pennsylvania. (There also frequently brief bursts of rain in those mountains.) For the first half of the drive, that is, before I got to the forested mountains of Pennsylvania, I could smell the smell of cow manure almost constantly. It was such a persistent smell, one that I'd also smelled last night at the Shaque, that I wondered for a time if perhaps some fecal matter was somehow traveling with me (like how you check the bottom of your shoe as the first thing you do when you smell shit indoors). But then when I'd roll down the windows, the smell would get more intense. It probably had something to do with the accumulation of manure over winter only just now rising to a temperature where it could release its fragrance.
The drive would've been an easy one I had I not run into a traffic jam just north of I-81's junction with I-83. For at least a half hour, I found myself crawling along slowly until I finally arrived at a place where two lanes of I-81 had been closed for emergency concrete repairs. I took advantage of the slow going to make myself a peanut butter sandwich, using a chopstick as a butter knife.
Further east, I stopped for gas at a truck stop, where I also filled my travel mug with surprisingly bad gas station coffee. I also took the opportunity to move the fixings to make a Tofurky-lettuce-mustard sandwich into the passenger seat so I could make one of those sandwiches if I got stuck in traffic again. But I didn't, and such sandwiches could not be safely made while traveling 75 miles per hour.
I ended up taking the New Paltz exit so I could go into the Tops supermarket to get some grapes (which I was craving) and some cold-brew coffee (to rinse the smell of road beer from my breath). I also got some naan chips that turned out not to be vegan, but I'd been unable to read the ingredients, which were printed in tiny black letters on a dark blue background.
I made it home at about 3:45pm, meaning the drive had taken eight hours. The dogs weren't as excited to see me as I would've preferred, though Gretchen seemed happy. I had her read the psychologial profile that had been written about my brother so she could see what the professional view of his situation looked like. And then I showed her the diary my mother had kept back in 1952. She found it boring, full of tedious details about people and animals she'd been with and foods she'd eaten, but no gossip about anyone or any indication what she might've been feeling. Gretchen mentioned a diary she'd kept as a fifteen year old that was full of nasty observations.
Speaking of accounts of foods eaten, tonight Gretchen heated up some extremely savory mushroom pierogies and cooked up some vegan "wings" and asparagus, which we ate while watching Jeopardy! (the one where a man suffering from Parkinson's disease mopped the floor with his opponents) and then another episode of Severance, the one featuring two different couples getting it on on the servered floor of Lumon.
[REDACTED]
The cleaned-up Shaque before I left it this morning, looking westward. Click to enlarge.
The cleaned-up built-in desk in the Shaque before I left it this morning, looking eastward. Click to enlarge.
Don sleeping in his bed this morning in the Creekside trailer, surrounded by Lego clutter. Click to enlarge.
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