Sweet Smell of Manure

I live in a small house on the border between a city and a rural area. In preparation for a collapse of GM as I know it, cin and I met with a realtor to investigate selling our house. I never realized just how small our house was until she started measuring everything. I am not bitter. I am perfectly content in my house that is just one click above a trailer. I don’t even have A/C. All the houses in my neighborhood are similar so I don’t feel out of place. I even have curtains so I secretly think everyone else envies me. My road rides take me out past farms. They stink. Manure doesn’t offend me, it’s not like I would use it for aftershave or anything but still, it doesn’t bother me.

The corner stone of my training plan this year is to fit in a ride every chance I get. I started leaving my bike in the truck. When I drop the kids off at dance practice I take off on a road ride. They dance in the Canton/Northville/Plymouth area, neighborhoods much nicer than mine. I observe the neighborhoods on my ride.

Garages, bigger than my house, filled with Toyota Prius hybrids so they can solve global warming, attached to huge houses that take three A/C unites to cool. The names of the neighborhoods crack me up. Where is the ridge in Pheasant Ridge? Probably filled in with the hills they removed from Fox Hills, and the pheasants and foxes were scared away in the process and probably scurried over to Pine Cove, that does have pine trees, but they are planted in perfectly straight rows and that just isn’t natural. North Pointe is just confusing, it is smack dab in the middle of Canton; it is as far south as it is north of anything, and I don’t see the pointe. And their bikes, shiny new bikes…do you really need full suspension for riding on perfectly paved paths? Why are the handle bars up so high? Why is everyone so smug? Then it occurs to me, no manure smell, no smell at all…their shit really doesn’t stink.