Molly Whiteside stopped as she delivered the menus at Mabel’s Grill the other morning and sniffed as she passed behind George Mackenzie’s and Cliff Murray’s chairs.

“What’s that for,” wondered   Dave Winston, as he opened his menu.

“We’ve had so many farmers coming in here after taking a break from spreading manure that the whole place stank,” Molly said as she took out her order pad. “I just wondered if any of you guys were adding to it,”

“I only spread manure after I was in here for the day,” George said.

“Me, too,” said Cliff.

“Well thank you for that,” said Molly. “I get to where I hate coming to work in the spring around here.”

“Well I hire people to spread manure from my  pig barn,” Dave said

“And we all smell that, even when it’s a mile off,” said Cliff.

“But I’ve only got enough pig manure for 150 of my 750 acres,” Dave protested.

“Oh yeah,” grumbled George. “We all remember the year you covered the other 600 acres with that     awful waste from human sewage plants. I’m a couple of miles away but I almost choked for about a week when they spread it.”

“And I heard about it!” Dave responded. “And I won’t get that stuff again!”

“Well let’s get down to some of Mabel’s good-smelling breakfast food before it gets busy, and stinky, in here,” said Molly. She took their orders and headed to the kitchen.

“So what are you fertilizing your other 600 acres with these days?” wondered George.

“Just commercial fertilizer right now, but I was reading in a farm paper about this cricket frass researchers are doing some research on,” Dave said. “If that goes well I’d be interested in trying it,” said Dave.

“What the heck is cricket frass?” wondered George.

“I read about that in the paper!” put in Cliff. “They’re not using it yet except at research farms, but it’s a pellet made by a company down in Petrolia from the excrement, exoskeletons  and discarded feed from an insect-growing operation in London.”

“Yuck!” reacted George.

“Oh, I suppose your cattle have such sweet manure you eat it for breakfast!” said Dave caustically. “I read that they tried this stuff in a greenhouse growing lettuce and cucumbers. They got cucumbers a week earlier than normal and they yielded 19 per cent more all tolled.”

“Never liked cucumbers anyway except for pickles,” sniffed George.

“I wonder how ladybugs would do as fertilizer,” Cliff wondered. “I’ve flushed so many ladybugs down the sink or the toilet in this mild winter that my septic tank must be about full.”

“They were a constant problem at our house, too,” said Dave.

“Well just don’t spread that on your crops,” grumbled George.

“The other thing I’ve noticed with such a lack of snow this year is that we’ve had so many deer in the yard,” said Cliff. “The other morning at breakfast my wife called me to see five in the orchard – they all looked kind of young. I suppose the older does are pregnant and staying in the bush these days.”

“Too bad they wouldn’t be nice and handy like that in hunting season,’ said Dave. “I could use some other meat than just pork in the freezer.”

“You could always buy a side of beef from me,” George suggested.

“Or lamb from me,” offered Cliff.

“Yeah but it’s more expensive than a hunting licence, a shotgun shell to shoot it and my own butchering,” Dave replied.

“I butchered a cow once, never again,” said George. “I’m happy to pay the abattoir to do the dirty work.”

“Too bad those ladybugs only go down the toilet,” Cliff said with a smirk. “I mean if we use dead crickets as fertilizer maybe we might have a good snack with ladybugs.” ◊