The World's Largest Cowpie, and How It Was Almost Successfully Crossed

The World's Largest Cow Pie was, in fact, achieved by numerous chickens who worked cooperatively over a period of time. This glooping monster was expelled late one winter from a dump truck onto the half acre plot beside the house I grew up for future use as garden fertilizer. Scooped in an eye-watering cloud of ammonia fumes from beneath the laying pens at the chicken farm where we three Johnson kids gathered and packed eggs at two cents per flat, it was, we neighborhood kids were sure, the largest specimen of its kind in existence.

The front loader on the chicken farm tractor plunged in, tilted, backed out, and dumped its big bucket into the back of the dump truck repeatedly. Then began the ride to our garden space in the small neighborhood two towns away. The dump truck backed into the center of the waiting half acre. Then its rear flap was unlatched and the hydraulic lift screamed to lift and shift the massive load. There before our eyes, like the primordial toilet of some great dinosaur, we kids witnessed the creation of The World's Largest Cow Pie. It glurped, steaming, to the cold ground. Fragrant, semi-fluid, and thick as oozing lava, it settled in a puddle about 15 feet across and three feet deep. Within its semi-liquid heart lay my Father's dreams for the finest garden in the neighborhood.

My father's dream was not without foundation. He had grown up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and knew the power potent fertilizer exerted upon growing things. In his boyhood days before indoor plumbing was common, outhouses were mined each spring and spread on the face of the fields under the euphemistic phrase "night soil", presumably in memory of blizzardy midnights on wooden thrones with drafty bottoms. It was their early equivalent of recycling. Everybody used night soil for fertilizer back then, and nobody complained. But times had changed. Folks had grown more finicky and tender minded. Other views and customs prevailed. So the arrival of The World's Largest Cow Pie, which while it did not emanate from humanity, was still a novelty in our neighborhood. While the concept had many enthusiasts among the younger set, their elders looked upon it with suspicion and upturned noses.

Weeks passed. The initial stink passed. The great cow pie in our garden began to crust over. We neighborhood kids, who had almost forgotten it, looked upon it again with new eyes. The huge crusting over cow pie reminded us of ice freezing over on the nearby ponds during the winter. Only this pond stood three feet deep above the surrounding chickweed in our still-to-be-tilled garden spot. It was brown and crusty, and had cracks on its surface. It didn't smell nearly so badly as the day it first arrived.

We speculated among ourselves that the crust had grown so thick one could walked across it safely. In fact, the more we talked among ourselves, the more we became convinced this was a important fact that needed verification. In the end, we recruited my four-year-old sister, Ingrid, to prove our theory. Ingrid was the most likely subject for the experiment. First, she was young enough to be be pliable. She could be talked into it. Second, she was the littlest and lightest kid in the neighborhood. She had the best chance of pulling it off. Third, we weren't entirely sure the crust would actually hold, so we needed someone else to brave the crossing. We led her, by persuasions and enticements of the glory that would be hers, to the edge of the great heap of moldering dung. Lack of life experience is a dreadful thing when others wish you to attempt what they will not.

Ingrid scaled the side of The World's Largest Cow Pie successfully. Its edges had indeed become hardened as the liquid vaporized or sank into the soil below. Our theory that the dried crust would support her lighter weight proved true--up to a point about six feet from the nearest edge. She was tiptoeing across quite nicely, when, suddenly, the brown crust broke beneath her like treacherous ice. Ingrid sank past her waist into the oozing chicken muck that boiled up from below. We who stood around watching were struck by the sudden fear that the stinking poop would suck her clear under, like quick sand. We set up a general wail that brought my Mom out of the house on the run. My sister floundered toward the edge and reached out a desperate hand. Mom grabbed hold and dragged her to safety. Then she turned on the garden hose and sprayed her off, before stripping her shorts and shirt, wrapping her in a towel, and leading her inside for a warm bath.

The World's Largest Cow Pie had plainly become a hazard to small children. It had nearly swallowed my sister. It might eat more of us. Mom prevailed upon Dad to do something about it. After work over the next week, Dad turned the original monster into a thousand smaller versions of itself. He scooped shovel fulls into his wheelbarrow, transported it through the early spring weeds, and plopped it down every few feet over the garden's entire surface. It looked like our half acre garden spot had hosted a herd of Holsteins with the runs. Only it stank rankly like the chicken poop it was. You could smell the Johnson place before you could see it driving in from town. Complaints from neighbors near and far rose to an angry rumble. What could those Johnson's be doing down there that smelled so bad? Why should they inflict this horrific odor on the entire neighborhood? The stench was enough to gag a maggot.

Dad ignored the neighbors' talk, and kept stolidly shoveling the fragrant stuff. He was a man with a plan, and nobody was going to stop him. Once the great cow pie was distributed, he hired a man with a tractor and a rototiller to come and churn the stinky stuff into garden soil. Then we planted corn, pole and string beans, summer squash, carrots, kohlrabi, tomatoes, beets, cabbages, lettuce, dill, parsley, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, and the rest in rows and hills.

It mattered little what we planted. Vegetables and weeds alike exploded in glorious profusion. That year our garden easily produced three times more than any other garden in our neighborhood. Our corn patch rose, a mighty forest. The pole beans slithered up and weighted down their holding lines like jungle vines. Tomatoes loomed large in vivid green, weighed down with fruit. Our zucchinis swelled and jutted like torpedoes. Row upon row of the rankest and richest vegetation flourished in Eden-like profusion. Mom's rows of cut flowers for the church pulpit bouquets blossomed, heavy-headed on vigorous stalks. It seems everything that grows likes the taste of chicken manure.

As we lived near the entrance to our street, our lush garden was readily visible to passing neighbors. It produced so much food we were handing out fresh vegetables to anyone who would take it the rest of the summer. People took to locking their car doors at church to keep annonymous bags of zuchinis from appearing on their front seats during services. Back home, the public mood changed. The next spring, every garden plot behind the houses along our street had its own great cow pie installed. It seemed my Dad had become the gardening trend setter. The World's Largest Cow Pie had inspired imitators. Our neighborhood stank for miles. Nobody complained.

As for us kids, we played Robin Hood of Sherwood's forest in the corn patch, built dinosaurs from excess summer squash using kindling sticks for legs and hooking together the body parts, and grazed on fresh vegetables at will. The World's Largest Cow Pie had paid off hansomely.

We never heard of any other kids attempting another cow pie crossing, however. It seems the word had gotten around and grew into local cautionary legend. Sometimes, one experiment is enough.

"The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the one who holds his hand." Psalm 37:23, 24 NASB