Re: CULT:Tumble Weeds

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Lots of things out there to remind you of "home" that one doesn't miss until they experience them again.  I grew up in starting in Iowa, then in northern Colorado and western Nebraska.  The dark green "dog day locusts" or cicadas that droned through the summers when I was little in Iowa made little impression on me when I was little, but years later when I was working in western Kansas and heard them again.  Where I lived in Kansas, Sublette, there were none of this species (they were the same there as in ne. Colorado), but occasionally we would drive to Dodge City, and that was east over some magic line.  First time I heard them, memories came flooding back from when I was in first grade and earlier.  Had to climb a tree and catch one just to see which one they were.

 

Now it is the Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) that reminds me of the high mountain parks of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming, and a totally different smell of Sand Sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia) that bring back memories of the Great Plains of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas.  We don't have the Big Sagebrush around here, but when it rains I sometimes smell Artemisia filifolia which grows several miles away (makes me smile every time).  Down here, it is the Creosote.  Never notice it much till I'm away for a while.  I get a taste of the Big S. at the Botanic Garden in Albuquerque, where I have two plants growing.

 

Sometimes the smell of TB Iris cultivars brings back flashes of my grandparent's gardens when I was little too.

 

Dave