Riding through the great aerial ocean
I recently listened to a speech by Australian of the year, Tim Flannery where he describes our atmosphere as The Great Aerial Ocean. It is a great speech by a great man that jolts you in to realising just how valuable, vunerable and scarce that thin layer of air really is.
There is a circuit I regularly cycle across the flat plains either side of the Goaping river. It is fertile and irrigated land, covered in small farms, factories and villages. Each of the activities that take place along the route let off a tell-tale odore of their existence. A reminder of the aerial ocean in which we swim.
I pass perhaps 6 small dairy operations. Each of these fills the surrounding air with the stench cow poop. They also contrast enourmously from the content cows on rolling green fields that the TV commercials have you believe your fresh milk comes from.
Perhaps half the fields are rice but there are cabbages, tomatoes, corn, all manner of produce and fruit trees between. With the intensity and value of the crops they are srayed continuously. Every cycle ride encounters a waft of herbicide, pesticide or both.
And there are factories. Peer into a small shed perched next to a field and you find a milling machine, welder, burner, plastic press, recycling furnace, paint shop, machine repair. They are all there. The plastic and paint shops emmit the sweet smells of the hydocarbons in there processing.
There is always someone burning something. Not a nice hot flame that leaves just gas and ash, but slow smoldering flames where the plastics, paints and other compustibles can let off all their acrid toxins.
There are 2-stroke scooters billowing smoke.
Goose and duck farms and an egg farm too. The smell is indistinguishable.
And the general dust and dirt that accompanies all the mechanical activities.
There are many pleasant parts to the route as well. Like the billboard poster suggesting a stop by Bedding World,
or the men out flying their pigeons and the verdant rice fields.
With such an onslaught of odours it sometimes feels more like an aerial soup.
You’ve done a great job breaking down into their individual components all the smells that assault our senses on a daily basis!
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Stephen reply on July 20th, 2008:
Thanks Kaminoge,
Those scents really hit hard don’t they. And at this time of year with the humidity as it is, it really feels like you are swimming through it.
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Kaminoge reply on July 20th, 2008:
Of course there’s nothing like getting stuck behind a garbage truck on a hot summer day!
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Stephen reply on July 22nd, 2008:
Yes they are bad. And there is always a Fur Elise garbage truck somewhere around. I find the dairies are the harshest at this time of year. Except perhaps a smouldering plastics and trash fire.
alas, no pastures for the poor cows, eh.
that factory is actually large compared to the set-ups in urban centers.
aerial soup: reminds me of the aquatic humans breathing with gills in Japanese novelist Kobo Abe’s Inter-Ice Age 4. There were also pigs with gills. All can be made to keep up with the times, but we’ll need to add wings. Sure, hot dogs will include the gills (and wings), but who’ll notice? Mmm, bbq’ed pig wings.
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Stephen reply on July 20th, 2008:
Ah yes, I didn’t mention the pig sties out there too. Not with wings but they smell just like the dairies. Hmmm, an ice age. That would chill things down and take some of the smells away.
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Do you get a chicky babe with every bed you buy!!!
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Stephen reply on July 22nd, 2008:
I think that only sell you the dream.
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