Category Archives: smells

Scents of a September morning.

quotes, smells, , , , ,

I was excited to walk to the library this morning. Only that one errand needed doing, so it wasn’t necessary to drive from place to place. I love staying home, but I also like taking walks. It’s having to get in the car and into traffic that is a bother.

So off I went, wearing my newish pack that one of my grandsons gave me last Christmas, with his wishes for fun adventures wearing it. It was just the right size for my wallet and the three books I was returning, all related to the Iliad. I’m still reading that classic, but I was done with those commentaries.

I had barely got around the corner when I ran into the first roses on my way. I was surprised — I must have been driving past them several times a week recently, but clearly with my mind elsewhere. As I was within a few inches, and not rolling past in a car, it was easy to stop and look into their faces. I sniffed all the colors along the fence, and they were delicious. These below were my favorites, because of their romantic nature:

I thought of what Elizabeth von Arnim said about this experience:

oleander

“[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.” 

Fifty steps further on, I caught a whiff of something sweet, and looked up to see that it was the oleander bush that towered above me. I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed the scent of oleanders — but how could that be? I have known them my whole life, and was pleased to encounter so many in Greece last year.

A few more steps, and I came upon a riot of blooming rosebushes at a busy intersection. This path was truly a highly decorated and aromatic one.

And then onward under the canopy of tall redwood trees, in the sunshiny and mildly warm air, and my heart was light. I soon reached the library — only to find it closed. A tall fence closed off the entrance, and a sign told about renovation, and that it would open again in the spring. In the meantime, we could use a temporary facility a few blocks farther away. What to do? Would my feet complain if I added this extra distance to their task? I decided that I didn’t want to extend my walk further, and turned back toward home, a little disappointed. I would have to drive to return my books after all. But worse things could happen.

Walking home the other direction I noticed different sights, as I looked down into the creek that is full of willows, waving in the breeze and showing their silvery undersides. I took the little shortcut along the creek, passing by this spot where the sunlight is often filtering through the trees in such a way that it makes me want to stop and sit a while, on the nice bench that has been installed there. But the bench faces into a big tree trunk, and doesn’t have a great view. So I never do.

This fennel plant was in bloom and smelling like licorice candy.

Next time I think I’ll plan to walk all the way to the temporary library. It’s likely that by then the roses will be gone, but I’m sure there will be some other good things on my path. And I won’t be going too fast to see them.

Excitement at dusk.

nature, smells, weather, , ,

The rain stopped this evening, just in time for me to walk on the bike path to the bridge. This wooden bridge spans two little creeks where they join and flow on westward through my patch of suburbia. I figured out that when I have a few more minutes available than it takes to walk around the block, I can go on this more woodsy walk to the middle of the bridge and still be back in less than 15 minutes.

What got me excited was just the utter freshness of the air after days of steady rain, and getting to see the creeks fuller than usual. It’s interesting how one is so much muddier than the other. Many wonderful plant scents were in the cool and damp air, underneath the bolder smell of wood smoke.

Between my house and that bike path, one of my neighbors has my favorite color of daffodils blooming right now. Their faces were heavy with rain, so I had to stoop down to get a good view of their happiness.

Weekday Vespers

church, smells,

Vespers was in our little old church this evening, and very beautiful in every way. Beforehand a few of us read an akathist prayer to Mother Olga of Alaska by candlelight. I think the wood paneled walls of this church are infused with 80 years’ worth of incense; something makes it smell good even when no services have been held recently. But tonight we had fresh incense, as well as warm singing and earnest supplications.

Damp scents and extravagant gifts.

children's books, my garden, smells, , , , , , , ,

The friend of a friend who gave me quinces last fall has given from her tree again, bless her heart. This time she didn’t drop them off at church, but I drove across the county a ways to pick up two boxes of fruit at her gate. This I was more than happy to do, because it is a gorgeous drive through hills and valleys, small vineyards and large gardens, along winding roads where every kind of tree imaginable has been planted to round out the natural oak forest.

It has rained and drizzled off and on the last two days, so every tuft of grass or turning leaf is extra fallish and delicious, all the scents mixed up with each other in the damp air. After I picked up my quinces and started back home, I wished so much that I could take a long walk in that part of the country; but the roads are quite narrow, I could not find a shoulder to park on, and I wasn’t wearing good shoes for that kind of outing. So I feasted my eyes on the sights as I rolled along, while my nose drank in the quince perfume from the back of the car.

When I got home, my copy of The Complete Brambly Hedge had arrived, after being delayed for months. Maybe I never had bought one of my own, or maybe I gave it away, but earlier this year I looked and looked and could not find one in the house, so I ordered it. As I leafed through its pages this afternoon I recognized the drama of autumn in the wonderful pictures. I think if I had been able to take that walk in the country, and to peer under the bushes, I would likely have glimpsed scenes like this one, from “Autumn Story”:

Similar things are going on in my own garden, and not just among the smallest creatures. I walked around this afternoon trimming this and that, and pulling long pine needles off of everything. Sunday I found the first ripe fig on the fig tree; this is a whole month later than ever before. Mentions on my blog in the past tell of their beginning to ripen as early as the third week of August. Normally they continue ripening into November, so I hope I might get at least a month’s worth of fruit.

fallish echinacea
Abutilon

I picked all the remaining (18) lemons from the tree, and was glad to see that, contrary to my fears of there not being much fruit to ripen this winter, lots of tiny lemons have showed up (above), and even blossoms. Somehow my tree is turning out to be a sort of everbearing lemon. That’s okay with me!

Strawberry Tree

The arbutus we call the strawberry tree has both unripe fruit and blossoms as well. I remember the grandboys on a ladder picking the fruit one Thanksgiving, so those treats are yet to come as well.

A Mediterranean Katydid visited me upstairs this week. I think I saw one of those here last year, too; do they like to come in the house for some reason? I assumed that this one would rather be outside, so after a couple of days of him migrating from one room to another and lastly surprising me on the bathroom faucet one morning, I got him into a jar and released him into the lemon basil clippings. But it was nice to have his company for a while.

Now — the lemons and quinces are calling me to get to work and put away their goodness against the winter. The sun is expected to come out tomorrow and we have some mildly warm days to look forward to; when the figs begin to come on strong I’ll be dehydrating them to put away, too. My own Autumn Story is one in which I am given, and am surrounded by, nourishing scents and fruits of the earth, and plenty of them.

Arbutus unedo