I Smell The Leaves

The smell of the leaves and the woods in the autumn is one of my favorite smells in the world!

I am feeling a bit nostalgic still about the mountains. It really started when some idiot started a fire pit. I don’t even know where it was, but unfortunately the smoke was strong enough it was burning my eyes and making me throat irritated inside our own house. So I had to close the windows.

That got me thinking of the campfires up the mountains. I can remember that from when I was very small.

Yesterday I smelled it a bit Today it is damper, so the smell is stronger. I keep getting hints of the odor of the falling leaves. That smell takes me back to some good times growing up. I do use the term growing up loosely because I will never grow up!

When we lived in an old stone house there was a large oak tree and other trees in the yard. It was a large yard too! Aside from smelling Rohm and Haas sweet chemical smell most of the time I remember the fall in that house.

The fall would be about us playing in the leaves. My mom would join us too! Knowing how her earlier life was it makes me especially happy that she did play in them a bit. I always think of that when I rake up the leaves here in our yard. Before had our tree removed we had a lot. There is a chance that I jumped in the leaf pile myself after doing that.

It also gets me really thinking about the mountains. That was really my happy place in some of my darkest days. I remember the smell of the woods when we would go into them wiht my dad when he was looking for a spot for buck hunting. There was also the lugging the wood up the mountain for him to build tree stand.

Later on I did a lot of riding my quad around. I loved driving that thing! With my vision maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did and it all worked out. That was the closest I would ever get to driving.

My trailer later on that was my payment for helping build a cabin was eventually moved into a spot under a bunch of oak trees. I loved that spot and I can remember smelling the leaves and acorns falling. I wonder how much bigger the trees are since it has been more than half a lifetime since I stepped foot on the parcel of land.

Fall is not about things in nature dying. It’s more about nature storing energy for the next year to be off to a good start. The annual plants that do die are just making way for fresh new life come spring. Pretty amazing that we are here to see and experience nature, isn’t it?