The Evocative Smell of Weight Loss

One of my classic cars was rear ended late in 2016.  I've been poking at the repair over the last few months, and finally moved it from the garage into the barn to start the actual body work.  Body work is very dusty and can involve some strong solvents.  Having that attached to the house seemed like a mistake waiting to happen.
Anybody who has used Bondo knows it has a fairly strong smell, and when I opened the can of body filler, the scent transported me back to when I first started learning body work.  I was working as a mechanic at the time and started working with a coworker who did body work at night and on weekends to make extra money.  It was a pretty magical time, being in college, working full time and seemingly always on the steep part of the learning curve - yet with good friends and somehow enough free time to have fun.

I wrote previously on the sounds of the Midwestern summer.  I think smell can be even more evocative.  Spring seems to have come early with lots of above-average temperatures this year.  June bugs are making their arrogant appearance en mass already now in April.  The early spring has screamed summer-promising smells.  Being April, cold weather is still very likely.

As a kid, I hated onion grass.  We called it leeks, but I'm quite sure they wouldn't be pleasant to eat.  Playing on rough lawns or empty fields would almost always result in somehow getting onion grass on our hands, and the pungent smell seemed impossible to wash off.  Onion-grass stains seemed even more interminable than normal grass stains.
The summer-like weather has resulted in lots of lawn mowing already.  The smell of cut onion grass mixed with the less-pronounced but equally intoxicating normal cut grass scent is a rite of spring.  Riding my motorcycle to work, it hangs in the cool damp mornings - promising winters end and shorts and T-shirts, even if the temperature is near freezing.
Last year's hay bales are looking sad, the smell of old hay with just a hint of mold also begins to foretell that green plants and summer are near.  I'm not sure why, as I grew up in the suburbs, but I feel oddly drawn to the comfort of farm smells, to barns filled with hay, to freshly turned earth, or even the cows in the field - although that can be taken to an unpleasant level in the extreme.
Flowering trees, almost a sickly sweet cousin to carrion, last only a few weeks in the spring.  Perhaps that is the scent of winters last death.

Other smells can similarly bring me back to specific times and places.  My first bear hunt in 2009 was a spring hunt over bait and the bait included mixture of old frosting and cinnamon corn flakes.  It was an odd combination, but the right mix of sweetness and cinnamon can bring me back to the cold Canadian brush.  I'll hopefully never forget the anticipation of that first hunt.  Watching bears up close makes zoos boring in comparison.  I can't ever go on my first bear hunt again, but I can be allowed a powerful reminder.
Spring isn't the only time with evocative smells, those early, still, cool fall evenings, sometimes coming even in late August bring wood smoke hanging in the air.  Wood smoke means campfires, comfort, the end of summer's oppressive humidity.  It signals yet another change.

The change to spring weather also brings with it a change in activity.  I can be quickly afflicted with cabin fever in the winter and get energized in the spring to be outdoors for any reason.  Longer dog walks.  Lots of bike rides - both motorcycle and pedaling.  Lawn mowing and any assortment of yard work, whether it is needed or not.  All this time spent outdoors means much less time vegetating in front of the TV.  The spontaneous weight loss associated with spring reduces the winter blubber.  A little over a year ago I started tracking my weight, curious how much change there actually was.  I'm not sure this cycle of weight gain and loss is healthy, but it is probably far from my biggest health risk.

While magical, the slightly depressing thing about the smells is that they really can't take me back.  And maybe that is a good thing.  I probably didn't enjoy everything in the past as much as I think I did now.  Rose-colored glasses can be toxically dangerous.
I'm not sure how well the repair of my classic car will go.  It has gotten a little rusty through the years.  My skills have gotten rusty as well.  I don't have access to the equipment I used to, to do the work as easily as before.  I'm hundreds of miles away from old friends who can do this kind of work in their sleep.
But at least for a little while, the scent can take me back ... however briefly.

Orion Rising

We're starting to see the first few tastes of fall.  Daylight is noticeably shortened relative to the summer solstice in June; daylight is predictable, and while temperature is not, the hysteresis in average temperature means we're well past even the typical highs in late July.  Average highs in late August are still solidly in the 80's and the humidity can be oppressive, but there have been a few early suggestions of the impending equinox weather.

I rode the bicycle a few days ago on a morning ride to a town about 20 miles away.  Leaving at the first sliver of the sun, the morning was almost cold, with fog clinging to the fields of soybeans.  A few fields showed touches of yellow leaves already forming in the otherwise dark green sea.  The bike ride, especially the first half, was stunning.  A recent article tries to paint this area of the country negatively, but I'll take the rolling rural agricultural landscape over many of the highly (over)rated and overpopulated areas.  The article propagates the myth of flyover country in graphic form.  Which is fine.  Those in New Jersey and Manhattan are welcome to stay in their natural environment.

Another year is continuing on its relentless march towards its end.

Last year's hunting was better than average with a bear, a deer and a wild boar making it into the freezer.
The bear was very large and there is still some left.  His fat didn't freeze too well, so most of what is left will be carefully trimmed and used for strong dishes like spicy stir fry or with red beans and rice.  Deer seems to last forever.  Most of my 2014 deer was ground into burger and while some slander ground venison with domestic fat, I almost always leave it native.

My early-year 2015 wild boar is now gone.  He was about average size, maybe 150 pounds.  Of all the game meat I've eaten, the wild hog has to be my favorite.  Most of the animal is very lean, making it slightly-less guilty pork.  A wild hog has most of his fat concentrated around the rib cage.  This makes the ribs difficult to cook and eat, but tasty.  It also makes them very messy.  The wild ribs were finished off much earlier in the year.

After the ribs are eagerly finished, the backstraps are finished, followed by the rest of the meat - either through steaks of varying toughness or ground wild pig.  My final wild boar meat was grilled after marinating with olive oil, pepper and ranch spices.

It is a little sad to see the wild game meat begin to be depleted, but it is better then waiting too long for it.
And after eating almost exclusively wild game for many months, the move to domesticated meats is actually a nice change, if a bit less mentally gratifying.  Regardless of origin, fall-off-the-bone ribs, cooked to perfection and finished on a smokey grill are extraordinary.

The constellation Orion is making an early morning appearance to the east just before sunrise.  Soon enough, meat from the deer and bear will be gone.  I find myself looking forward more than most years to the change in season but not for any particular reason.  Or maybe after a summer of days that passed with monotonous similarity, any change is going to be welcome.