From here, it looks like such a lovely pond. Photo by Andrew David Thaler
The murky brown water was still, reflecting, perfectly, the drifting clouds above. Had I not known what it was, an acre-wide manmade pond almost a dozen feet deep filled to the brim with hog feces, I might be tempted to describe it as “beautiful”. Hog lagoons like this are a common sight in North Carolina, though their use is in decline. My lab group arrived at this particular lagoon to take microbial samples, fungi in this case, from the steaming cauldron of organic waste: an ideal culture medium. Carefully, we loaded a small skiff and rowed out into the stink. Near the center, we gingerly dipped our sampling vials, affixed to the end of an old fishing pole, into the dense fluid. It was then that we noticed the rising waterline, the slow trickle at the stern, the shift in balance. We locked the oars and rowed, frantically, towards shore. Our labmates on shore had, thankfully, tied a line to the bow before we departed. The skiff’s gunwales were creeping closer and closer to the water. We were sinking. We were sinking in a lake of pig shit.
You were warned. I promised that if no one submitted an Ocean Story Slam in a given week, you would be faced with the horrific visage of a hog lagoon. Well, it’s been 7 days since our last submission. It’s hog poo time.
Digging through my old hard drive this morning, I found this image.
Yes, this is the boat. So here’s the deal: Submit your best stories to Bluegrass Blue Crab’s Ocean Story Slam. For every week we don’t get a submission, I’m going to post a picture of a hog lagoon. You have been warned.
Of course, since I’m also a judge, this technically doesn’t count. Some stories are just too fun not to tell, this is not one of them. So consider this my gift to you:
Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
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