Stinky Cheese

It’s True, Limburger Cheese Contains the Same Bacteria as Feet

Surface-ripened, aged, and famously malodorous Limburger is a 19th-century northern European cheese that was traditionally layered between slices of dark bread with raw onions and horseradish (or mustard) and washed down with a frosty beer.   

 

When the sandwich-beer combo came to Green County, Wisconsin, with Swiss and German immigrants, tavern-goers went for it in such a big way that it wasn’t until decades later, when saloons closed during Prohibition, that Limburger sales declined.

America’s lone-remaining Limburger cheese factory is in–you guessed it–Wisconsin! Chalet Cheese Co-op still makes and distributes more than a million pounds of the stinky cheese annually, and you can order an authentic Limburger sandwich at Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern in Monroe.  

 

Learn more about the science of Limburger here. 

Midnight Stinker

Meet Mephitis mephitis - the Striped Skunk. 

 

Generally nocturnal, this is a solitary and secretive animal that has a distinctive pungent scent.  Found throughout Wisconsin you'll smell it before your spot it.  

A member of the weasel family it is an omnivore that rambles-about in a shambling gait in search of food. This animal does not hibernate but it will hole-up in it’s den for weeks at a time during extended cold snaps. 

This is not an aggressive critter as a consequence of a unique defense mechanism.  If threatened it will stamp its feet, arch its back with tail raised, teeth chattering and launch a spray of oily stink from glands located near its anus. This critter can nail a bullseye at up to fifteen feet. Most predators give this animal a wide berth – the exception being the great horned and barred owl.  

Breeding season begins in February – March with 6-7 offspring born naked and blind in May – June.

Snake Oil

Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, is planning a bond issue to fund the purchase of a $69.1 billion majority stake in Saudi Arabia’s national petrochemicals company.  The transaction is being pitched as a mechanism to boost cash in the country’s sovereign-wealth fund to support Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s professed economic reforms.  Just in case you are considering an investment in this scheme consider this. 

The Company has been pretty straightforward that it has no need to tap the bond market to pay for its purchase.  Motassim Al-Ma’ashouq - group treasurer of Saudi Aramco - told potential investors on Monday that the company had no actual financial need for raising proceeds 'given our fortress-like corporate position.'  He described it as a continuation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 'strategic decision' to enter the public markets that began a couple of years ago – a reminder of the Prince's desire to take a part of Aramco public. 

Given the fact that everything in Saudi Arabia is owned or controlled by either the Royal Family or the government hiding in plain sight is evidence that the Royal Mobsters wish to borrow billions to purchase the chemical company from itself. 

This is actually quite clever - a plan to bamboozle non-Islamic investors to give them a pile of cash (that they admit to not needing) to sew one end of the carpet to the other.  You still have the same amount of carpet after the transaction closes.  And you hold the cash you didn't have before. 

Inasmuch as it is clear as mud if the company owner is the government or the king – does the money go to king's personal wealth or to the government?  And while President Trump would tell you that the Saudis are our friends - looks to me like someone is pitching snake oil instead of crude oil.

Let's be serious - the Saudis are not our friends.

Stinker

The beginning of this month this pungent visitor showed-up on this very same trail camera.

Mephitis mephitis - the Striped Skunk.  

A nocturnal animal it is more often smelled than seen which is fine by me.  Eight years ago Girlfriend got sprayed and we had to clean her up before letting her back in the house.

With the freezing temperatures we've had lately I'd just as soon not have to go thru that sort of trouble.  

Stinker

Meet Mephitis mephitis - the Striped Skunk - who has incidentally been showing-up on this trail camera regularly.  More often smelled than seen this is a nocturnal animal - hence all of the photos are in IR mode and after dark. 

The striped pelt serves to provide ample warning to a predator that this critter is not to be meddled-with.  If threatened it will raise its tail and spray up to a distance of more than a dozen feet an odiferous substance that can even cause temporary blindness.

Around these parts - home for this critter is typically a burrow under one of the numerous rock piles on the property.  Skunks do not hibernate but during the winter months will hole-up in their dens for up to a couple months.

A word of caution to my hunting buddies venturing to or from their deer stands in the dark.  Keep your sniffer working....

Putresence

pu·trid

ˈpyo͞otrəd/

adjective

adjective: putrid

1. (of organic matter) decaying or rotting and emitting a fetid smell.

   synonyms:

   decomposing, decaying, rotting, rotten, bad, off, putrefied, putrescent, rancid, moldy; More foul, fetid, rank "putrid meat"

   • of or characteristic of rotting matter.

     
     

     "the putrid smells from the slaughterhouses"
   • informal

     very unpleasant; repulsive.

     
     

     "the cocktail is a putrid pink color"

Now that the crops are off the fields and the barrenness of winter has fallen across the landscape the whitetail deer have resumed their nocturnal visitation to the yard to dine upon my white cedars.  And it didn't take very long.  Last year's browsing damage had largely - but not completely - been repaired as the trees regenerated their scaly leaves..But already the results of deer browse have been manifesting on the landscaping.

We've counted the confirmed deaths of twenty-two deer in the past two years off of our little 80 acres of heaven and by all outward appearances we haven't made much of a dent on the herd of tree munchers.  So I mixed a couple of gallons of deer repellent and sprayed my shrubs with Deer Stopper.  We'll see how it works.  A word of advice however - don't do this on a breezy day as an errant wind gust might cause some blow back from your backpack sprayer and anoint you and your clothing with the stuff.

And you will smell of Putrescent Whole Egg Solids.  Blech... 
                     

click on images to enlarge

Visualize a Tidal Wave of Poop

Big industrial pig farms use the lagoon system to save money.  

The waste is collected and stored in a lagoon.  After the solids settle out of the liquid manure and bacteria decompose the organic matter, farmers spray the remaining liquid onto fields as fertilizer. The slurry is rich in nitrogen and phosphorous—which works for fertilizer—but that also makes it disastrous  when it gets into rivers after a flood.

It's happened before and now flooding caused by hurricane Matthew may result in the breaching of lagoons filled with liquefied swine poo. 

This is a serious hazard to aquatic life and human health.

Honey Wagon

While out and about riding a bicycle around the country-side recently I could help but notice the size of the honey wagons.  They are semi-trailer-sized now.

Large-scale dairy operations produce animal wast on the scale of a large town.  And most of the liquified manure finds its way on to an agricultural filed eventually as fertilizer.

From nearby - spreading manure.

click on the stinky object to enlarge

Smell that dairy air!

 

POWTS

Private Onsite Waste Treatment System.

This is how you handle your shit when you're out in the country and don't have a municipal sewer system.  Everything flows down hill in the plumbing to a 1000 gallon tank where the solids settle.  From there the effluent spills into a smaller tank where it is filtered before being pumped into a mound system.  Once in the mound it slowly filters back into the ground water.  Our own miniature sewage treatment plant. 

Got the three year clean bill of health after having the tanks pumped and inspected
.

That would be right.  Every three years.

The county sanitarian requires it due to the fractured dolomite limestone bedrock that makes-up the Door peninsula.

No leaking or failing septic systems allowed.

I chatted with this fella as he went about his stinky business.  All I can say is .....Whew!