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A revelation
On the self absorbed assumption that at least one of you wondered what 
is the smell of.
It's dirt.
I really like the smell of dirt, which is good because I spend a lot of time in, and around, it.
Foxholes, hasty fighting positions, quick bits of cover, artillery bunkers (like a bomb shelter, only different).
The feel of it, close to the body when one is trembling (with fear, or anticipation, or both). The unyielding give when it bounces from a nearby explosion, and throws one into the air, like a grain of rice on a drumhead, with bruises from one's buttons. Unforgettable.
The soft nature of good humous dirt, leaf mold and worm castings. The way one's fingers can just lift it, and crumble it (almost as if it were the vat of spermaceti oil Ishmael discusses squeezing with his hands) smoothly breaking. The warm reek of a freshly opened compost heap, and the chunk of the mattock when turning the soil to amend that compost into. The dusty feel of it in the nose when summer rain hits the garden. The squish of it between the toes.
Seeing the layers as one digs a trench (unless one needs, truly needs, the money, do not get a job digging trenching for sprinkler sysyems in Phoenix, in July), and the gritty nature of sand on the face from a day near the beach, or walking an arroyo.
The unmistakable smell of rain in the desert, water and dirt commingling, and still separate.
Dirt is my favorite smell.
is the smell of.It's dirt.
I really like the smell of dirt, which is good because I spend a lot of time in, and around, it.
Foxholes, hasty fighting positions, quick bits of cover, artillery bunkers (like a bomb shelter, only different).
The feel of it, close to the body when one is trembling (with fear, or anticipation, or both). The unyielding give when it bounces from a nearby explosion, and throws one into the air, like a grain of rice on a drumhead, with bruises from one's buttons. Unforgettable.
The soft nature of good humous dirt, leaf mold and worm castings. The way one's fingers can just lift it, and crumble it (almost as if it were the vat of spermaceti oil Ishmael discusses squeezing with his hands) smoothly breaking. The warm reek of a freshly opened compost heap, and the chunk of the mattock when turning the soil to amend that compost into. The dusty feel of it in the nose when summer rain hits the garden. The squish of it between the toes.
Seeing the layers as one digs a trench (unless one needs, truly needs, the money, do not get a job digging trenching for sprinkler sysyems in Phoenix, in July), and the gritty nature of sand on the face from a day near the beach, or walking an arroyo.
The unmistakable smell of rain in the desert, water and dirt commingling, and still separate.
Dirt is my favorite smell.
no subject
Dirt. Never would have guessed. I thought it might be the scent of the world at sunrise.
Dirt
Actually, remembering George Dempster -- the Manx/Glasgow plantsman under whom I first worked in the horticultural field -- I'm tempted to rant about the importance of distinguishing between "soil" (which is Good, because plants grow in it) and "dirt" (which is Bad, something to wash away), but apparently I've become mellow enough to accept the fact that American usage doesn't make this nice distinction.
(For Garden Porn: some of the volunteer cherry-tomato plants are about five feet tall, but all the fruit (ultimately, if all goes well, many pecks of them) are still green, so I'm now harvesting only edible-pod peas ('Oregon Sugar-pod'), Chinese mustard greens (growing with marvelous exuberance), young carrots, square yards of _shiso_ (it reseeds itself), and a few beet leaves (the Chard -- 'Northern Lights' -- is still too small to pluck leaves from). Of course I should have planted additional patches of several things a couple of weeks ago, but... Real Soon Now...)
Re: Dirt
TK
no subject
no subject
I recall living in that desert. We have better sand here, near the beach. It means, however, I have to travel a bit to smell good dirt.
I'm nor sure, per se, that dirt is my faovorite smell. As I said in the original post, how can one choose? I couldn't pick coffee (which is up there) because I'd used it for drink.
Nor the homey smell of baking bread, nor any of a host of others which might have come to mind. I chose dirt, sand, earth, because it is ubiquitous, and; like wine, infinitely variable.
TK
no subject
Perhaps I'll put a bit of it on my wrists if you and I are ever going to meet in person. (Yes, I know you're a happily married man and all that...the point is to be pleasant company.)
no subject