Making Scents

It's that glorious time of the year when the air is heady with spring scents.  Freshly mown grass, lilies of the valley, iris, pine needles.  I have experienced them all so far this spring and I just can't seem to get enough of them.  I believe the sense of smell carries our memories with it.  Freshly mown grass makes me think of our big yard when I was growing up.  Even with a tractor-style lawn mower, it took as 1 1/2 days to mow the entire thing.  As a kid, that was a drag, but when I look back on it, I realize how it was a neat "together" sort of time for my parents and me.  When the job was done, we'd treat ourselves to root beer floats from A&W where car-hops waited on us. Or we'd enjoy one of the zillions of flavors of shakes from Tastee Freez.  I liked trying a different flavor of shake every time. Lilies of the valley remind me of the large number of them that grew along the shaded, north side of our house when I was a girl.  Mom and I had May birthdays -- just four days apart -- and it always seemed that the fragrant lilies of the valley were in bloom for our special days.  I love bearded iris.  They dotted our big backyard when I was a child and then when I owned a house of my own (pre-condo days), I even had unusual, rich brown varieties of them.  The scent of pine needles always makes me think of the lectures my dad used to give each summer at Camp Upham Woods in Wisconsin Dells.  This 4-H camp is tucked into the woods.  It always had the delightfully commingled smells of camp fires and pine needles.  Memories are a wonderful thing.