Another Day in the Country
Take a sniff
© Another Day in the Country
“I read somewhere,” is often the opening sentence to conversations I have with my family and friends.
Being mostly retired — I just teach art one day a week — means that I have time again for reading. I highly recommend it because as long as you have a good book as company, you will never really be lonely.
You can dash off to India, as I did this last week, via the latest book by Arundhati Roy, “Mother Mary Comes to Me.”
As in all of her books and essays, Arundhati talks about difficult subjects but manages to write in the most beautiful way. Her words can make you smell the scents of India.
That said, I’m going to use that opening statement on you.
I read somewhere that scent is a stimulant to our brain — a good one — and that smelling strong scents like lemon, mint, and lavender can even sharpen your mental acuity.
Maybe that’s one reason that I love mowing in the summer.
While I’m whizzing around corners and weaving between flower beds, I’m always running into interesting scents. Yesterday was no exception. In fact, there was a new kid on the block.
“Whew, what was that?” I thought as I cut closely past the garden box. It was the oregano spilling over the edge off its box and down into the grass.
By my little backyard puddle / pond, I always run into chocolate mint that my neighbor gave to me years ago.
“You’ve got to be careful,” he cautioned me. “It can take over everything.”
That’s exactly what happened. I’m constantly fighting off the mint, but it’s a fun fight because it smells so refreshing.
Basil is another one of those good-smelling things that I run into when I’m mowing. And, of course, the wonderful smell of green grass and clover is heavy in the air when you mow thanks to all the moisture we’ve been getting.
This morning, I even saw fog, which always is shocking to me. Fog is California, not Kansas, my brain is telling me. But fog it was, lying heavy over the edges of Ramona.
My backyard has smelled like the Napa Valley in September this year because of apples, which, unfortunately, are mostly produced for the bees and other wildlife because I don’t spray them.
Worm-ravaged apples have been falling off trees, and they are rotting.
In the Napa Valley, after grape harvest, many farmers put the excess grape pulp back out into the vineyards, like we spread manure in Kansas.
You can smell that sweet, fruity scent constantly through September and October.
So, as I pick the last of my apples for one more apple pie and mow around the edges off the trees, my mower blades flick up apples and chop them to bits.
The scent of rotted fruit hung heavy in my backyard until rains came to dilute the smell. When the sun comes out and warms the earth again, perhaps it will come back to remind me of another life, another place, which sometimes feels like another planet.
I’ve tried using scent — like lavender — to keep the neighbors’ extra cats off my porch. They love coming over to lie on my quilted cushions.
“They think they are on vacation in Hawaii,” I grumble to my sister or anyone else who will listen.
Then, I get out my lavender spray and stand the pillows on edge so the cats can’t easily lie on them.
I got out my box of essential oils when I started writing this column because I wanted to check out how tingly different oils made my nose feel and which were my favorite, like bergamot.
Lemon is a good one for sniffing, but I’d rather get a whiff of a fresh lemon that’s destined to become tea or lemonade because not only am I sniffing; I’m tasting, too.
Play a game, why don’t you, and test your scent acuity — seeing how many wonderful smells you can identify with your eyes closed.
Wild onion or garlic — I’m not sure I always know the difference — succumbed to the blade of my lawnmower when I last was mowing.
The scent is really sharp where new shoots have come through because of the rain.
I stopped the mower and picked some for seasoning in a salad I was making for lunch.
Of all the essential oils I’ve used in lotion and potions, bay is my favorite. I always bring back fresh bay leaves from California when I visit. I crumple the leaves in roasts and soups and, as the fragrance moves through the house, give thanks that I’m still spending another day in the country.