Hunter Wells: Farm smells - one man’s beautiful is another man’s ghastly

Wet wool is a beautiful smell to some. Photo / Michael Craig

Hunter Wells writes for the Weekend Sun and Coast & Country News.

OPINION

Even the Corriedales looked miserable.

Because of the mist, the fog was down to the top of your Red Bands.

It consumed you and permeated every remote corner of your cold, damp soul.

Most unpleasant.

And those Corriedales, smelling like a flock of wet socks, were munching Chou Moellier like they were willing themselves to an early slaughter.

Why fatten yourself so enthusiastically?

“Wet socks?” remonstrated the broad-brimmed oilskin hat, under which, lived a farmer.

He was mildly offended.

“It’s a beautiful smell,” he said.

“Wool pongs when it gets wet because of lan’lin, a natural oil produced by sheep.

“When the fleece gets wet it releases fatty acids and other stuff that make that distinctive smell.

“But lan’lin is a beautiful thing.”

A young city mind struggled with all things rural.

Perhaps I should do a course in aromatherapy and then warn the sheep.

Do yourself a favour guys, stay scrawny until after Christmas - buy some time.

That hat would probably find the pungent funk of roasting hogget beautiful too.

Or that ever so slightly sweet, acidic whiff of positive fermentation from a silage pit.

One man’s beautiful is another man’s ghastly.

I suppose his olfactory senses were just tuned a little bit differently from mine, but I still think of gardenias, roses and lilies, and high-end male toiletries, when beautiful smells are mentioned.

I’m sure he was just waiting to enlighten some young ignoramus from the city.

The hat blathered on - “Lanolin’s nature’s gift, protects the sheep from the elements, and in turn, it helps us soothe, moisturise and heal dry and cracked skin.”

Rather than a “man of the soil” like radio’s fictitious but hilarious “Arthur Fallowfield”, the Hat sounded more like a mouthpiece for a personal care brand.

Not that there had been many soothing, moisturising and healing applications of God’s balm to the face beneath that hat.

It was a wonderful face of 1000 stories and hardened by a lifetime of battles against wind, rain, snow, sleet and sun.

The weather was winning.

Little did that Hat know its insights and wisdom would be retained by a townie and written up in a popular rural publication 60 years later.

Anyhow, fog, manky smells and Chou Mollier aside, the Hat announced he was taking this city ninny out for a great night.

Should a ninny get dressed up, should a ninny get dressed down, should a ninny get excited?

A great mid-week rural night out is in next month’s Coast and Country.