You Know You Live near a Factory Farm When Your Kids Go Fishing with a Pool Skimmer

. . . when you have to pressure wash your cat

Don’t do this at home! That being said, factory farm pollution seems to permeate everything in the neighborhood. The prevailing winds sweep up the valley past the fifteen years old CAFO next door, with it big metal cow sheds and multi-million gallon open cesspit, directly at my house. Anybody who says that liquid manure is just cow manure in a liquid form is lying. Not only is it filled with the hormones, antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria that are a byproduct of factory farm methods, it’s fermented in giant open air pits for months, resulting in a number of deadly toxic gasses. These gasses have caused so many deaths, that farm workers are urged to wear gas masks when working around these pits. While the deadly gasses these pits generate, like Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), can travel for miles without dissipating by an effect known a pluming, no admission of this, or long terms studies on the health of rural neighbors have ever been made.