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Wanna Move Out to the Country?

Ottakee mentioned the scratch and sniff manure brochure in the comment section of this post. I really need to tell you that story.

Our county is THE main agricultural county in Michigan (both in dollar amounts, and diversity of products grown). Our vistas (though mostly flat) are beautiful, and the communities are very family-friendly. This area has also been until recently a fabulous place for industry. Because it's such a great place to live, lots of people have moved here over the years. And many of them want to live out in the country! Until...

...they realize that farming is not what they remember from the Old MacDonald storybooks. Tractors working long past dark during planting and harvest season. Gravel roads with potholes. Flies. Odors, even.

Many people have moved out to the country, and then turned right around and made it hard for farmers to farm. Lawsuits. Angry accusations. Dashed dreams.

So our county's Farm Bureau went proactive, and made up a brochure to hand out to realtors and prospective countryside dwellers.  This was our first little brush with fame (our much-younger family is featured in one of the photos). We had no idea how wildly popular this scratch-n-sniff brochure would become.  

Too bad they haven't done a fully-featured on-line version. You'll have to just use your imagination for the scratch-n-sniff part...
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Comments

  1. AlwenOctober 11, 2008 at 9:13 PM

    I love the scratch-and-sniff brochure.

    When we moved in we had pigs down the road in either direction, so no matter which way the wind was blowing, we got that distinctive country air. We used to call it "yuppie repellant".

    ReplyDelete
  2. PamOctober 14, 2008 at 9:16 PM

    How hilarious! I saw that comment of Ottakee's but thought it was tongue in cheek, not realizing there really WAS a scratch-n-sniff brochure! What a great idea! :-) Thanks for 'splainin.

    ReplyDelete

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