Good Smell, Bad Smell, Death and Decay Smell

Lovely picture, right? 
Let me tell you, 
they smell wonderful!
They grow wild along the road around here. 
People have told me that they are called 
Russian Olives. 
I have high hopes that they will root and I can plant them
somewhere in the yard. 

Anyway, 
those of you that follow along
know that there are stories 
here that are 
a bit bizarre. 
As many as there are that I tell...
there are many more that I choose to keep under wraps. 
This one probably should be..
but too funny, weird,
well words might not describe this incident. 

A couple of weeks ago
a friend brought more of those deer skulls for me to paint. 
I put them in my car. 
Also, right around that time, 
we got a load of ground beef. 
(This will be important later in the story)
Later the same deer head day,
I opened my car door to the smell of death and decay.
Apparently the deer heads were not completely clean. 
Immediately, they were laid outside to air out. 
A day or so later, 
I put them in the basement. 
My basement looks somewhat like a mild episode of 
Hoarders,
I choose to call it 
Stage One Hoarding. 



The basement started smelling
almost instantly. 
Of course, 
I blamed the deer heads. 
After a couple of days
of sprays,
candles.
deodorizers,
the deer heads went to the porch. 

However,
the smell did not go away.

More sprays,
the whole drill,
until 
last 
Wednesday. 
I went down to dig through the 200 or so cabinet doors 
that are down there
to find just the right one. 
And there it was....
A
PACK
OF
GROUND BEEF! 

And....
this is the part
I am not wanting to tell...
mouse chewings.  
Apparently, 
now not only do we have death and decay 
smell in the basement,
we have 
more
mice! 
I just can't get rid of them. 
Guess I could quit feeding them! 

Then,
not thinking,
I picked it up and threw it in the garbage in the kitchen,
fully planning on taking the bag out and replacing it.
and
FORGOT 
about it. 
FOR 
TWO
DAYS!

Until the death and decay smell smacked me in the face
Friday morning.

The deer heads? 
Before the ground beef,
I contacted the owner of the deer heads and 
apparently 
they were not cleaned properly. 

Double smell whammy! 

JWS calls it 
Stage Two Hoarding. 
When it involves food and animals...
Stage Two. 

Apparently
Stage Three Hoarding
is after the animals die. 

Such an expert, that man. 

Comments

Teresa said…
I am laughing and crying for you. Hate when you have a smell you can't find. Don't feel bad we have all had one .
Teresa's Heartfelt Stitches
acorn hollow said…
yikes that had to smell bad.
Cathy
BumbleBeeLane said…
Yuck...That's all I can think of.LoL..~Amy
Ann said…
Cathy, I'm so sorry, but I think I'm laughing at your expense! I'm also laughing because I can see this same thing happening to me - well maybe not the deer heads, but a package of ground beef! We've had things fall out of the freezer before (hmmm, children not paying attention when they get into the freezer). Thanks for getting my day off with a smile! ~Ann
Angela said…
Girl your post are good for the soul. Make me laugh everytme. I can truly say, you never have a dull moment, what a life!!! You try and have a wonderful weekend.
Angela
Lesley said…
OMGoodness. That is one event I would not want to witness or share.
We had a dead animal come through the sump pipe once and died in the sump hole. I knew something smelled really bad. JB went to look and yup my nose was right, anyways I hear ya. And you never forget that smell either. Good grief next time you get deer heads to paint ask first if they have been cleaned. How did the ground beef get into a cupboard? you must have had a lot on your mind that day. ACK....
Have a better weekend. Those flowers look lovely.
Les♥
Catherine said…
All I can say in this on is, oh my!
Holly said…
Oh my! How terrible. I can just imagine that horrid smell. Ugh! Your story made me chuckle though. Have a great weekend.
Laurie said…
Good grief Cathy! I get such a kick out of your stories! I've smelled dead deer hides, and know the smell all too well! And rotten beef on top of it to boot! Ewwwwww.....
Sheila said…
You know Cathy, just when I think I've not heard it all from you, you find something to top a previous post! I feel so bad for laughing so hard-I can't even imagine the stories that you keep to yourself! Never do you lack for something to do?
I still think you'd have a best seller on your hands if you wrote a book ;-)
Wishing you an "uneventful" weekend~
And here I was thinking that nothing could be worse than a loose potato hiding under the car seat was bad =0
JoAnn
Unknown said…
Sorry for you smell, but I love the story. I left a round steak in my car once, holy cow the smell!
Linda Cardella said…
I have had the same thing happen... except that the forgotten packages of meat were in the trunk of my car for two days... in July.

As for your flowers, I love the smell of Russian Olive (also called Bohemian Olive) so much, that I had Sylvain plant a tree right in front of the house so the smell could waft in on the breeze. I think it is the most beautiful smell. I have a fragrant rose in my garden that I absolutely love, but it doesn't beat my Russian Olive. Ours flower for only two weeks and they usually start smelling the first week of June.

Once you've smelled a Russian Olive, you can always tell when there's one around. Even the slightest breeze will carry the sweet smell.

Linda
Unknown said…
Chuckling as I type and thanking the Heavens above that it was not me that happened to!!
}}Hugs{{
Vicky
Blech! How horrible - Perhaps you should cut a whole bunch of those Russian Olive branches and bring them inside..together with a kitty from the nearest shelter!
frontporchprims said…
That smell is awful. We had a package of ground beef fall to the side of our freezer in the garage and it sat there for 4 days stinking up the whole place before we found it. I thought there was a dead cat in the garage somewhere. I can't imagine the whoe house smelling like that though. And mice? Ugh. What a week. JWS, he's a smart one he is. -Steph-
Barb said…
HOLY DEER HEADS!! and ground beef!
I am laughing so hard, not at you hopefully with you because I would do the same thing!!
Need to go dry my eyes!
Barb
Oh my Goodness! That must of smelled bad. I'm still waiting for you to write that book Cathy! I tell you it would be a number 1 Best seller! I so look forward to your Posts. Have a wonderful day!
TheCrankyCrow said…
EWWWWW!

And I can say that emphatically because I KNOW that smell! :o I'm not particularly fond of the smell of raw ground beef to begin with - but got the full aroma horror experience once when DH took a package out of the frig to get at something else and placed it on top of the frig - where it lingered for days. (Hey, I'm not THAT tall!)

Here I thought you were going to tell me those Russian olive blooms smelled bad..... I've never seen nor heard of those before - they're gorgeous! Robin

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