Friday Photo Shoot Out: Smells

It seems strange to have the FSO theme twice in a row, but it was just happenstance. I just happened to be doing the Member Voice with Doreen when the news of Barry’s passing came. I’m not hogging the themes, really! Anybody would have thought of that; I just happened to say it first.

Smell my town. Go ahead; smell it!
I thought of this one right after the Sounds theme, which also asked everyone to depart from the usual visual thing (but it is a Photo shootout!) and explore a different sense. Mark quite naturally said Touch! Touchy touch! So I grabbed Smell, sweeping Taste up in the batch because they so often go together, and now I’ve let Taste go. Been done! And will be done again in some form. Do not feel sad for Taste; it will be served.
Among the quite recent smells of my town are those generated in that perpetually changing place: the Centre Jean Perrin, where I work. Last week we were treated to fresh, hot asphalt. Mmm Mm! Get a whiff of that, and keep it all day. The odor has tapered off, and now we have proper parking on part of the lot. Just part of it. Since we cannot ever just be closed, stuff like this has to be done in stages.
In the woods on the weekend (if I can walk there from here, they must count as being in town) there were lots of smells. Fresh cut pines where they’ve been logging were stacked high, their ends still bright. Love that smell. I didn’t take any photos of that part of the woods, sorry. One section was clear-cut earlier in the summer, which I think is an awful thing to do. The sections I hiked past this time had just been thinned. They took one tree in ten or so, scattered around. The decimated field looks a lot better than the cleared field, but I wonder where the replacement saplings are. They’ve been thinning this area for a few years already: it’s curious they’ve not put in new trees for the crop 10 - 20 years from now.
In the afternoon a different familiar scent crept up on me: that of rain in the air. Yep, here it comes! Time to hurry home. That story is here.
My yard is full of scents too. In the front there are roses. It annoys me that the neighbors park in front all the time, in both spots, so letting the roses go and hang their spiny branches out over the parking spot, is my petty revenge. They have a driveway!The back yard is full of competing scents. The lavender was full of bees, but I didn’t get a single good portrait. The rosemary, thyme, and (what is that other one?) are doing their best to get as bushy.

My tomatos are just turning, at long last. Love how a good tomato smells! Soon it will be time to gather some up and make sauce for the whole winter.

Four of the plum trees are going full tilt just now. I’ve been thinning out their fruit for weeks, but there’s still a huge crop and it’s beginning to fall onto the ground. Every day this week I’ve taken a sack of the small yellow ones (top container), and/or the wild ones (bottom container) to the lab, and so far they have all disappeared into my colleagues. But even they will get full. I’m encouraging the formation of tarts and preserves, but still the dropped plums accumulate on the ground and in just a few days it will begin to smell like fermenting fruit out back.The apples have been dropping fruit for weeks, too, though only one of the trees has any that are ripe (god, I love apples that are barely ripe!). With apples being larger, they’re easier to clear up and into the compost bin. I’m about to start drying apple slices for the winter and soon will be giving apples away by the sackful as well. I should know somebody with peaches to trade.

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So there you are. For more Shootout fun, click here!

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