CONTROLLED BURN
At the time I drew this, I was volunteering to survey bird populations at a estuarine wetland nature preserve off the coast of Lake Erie. On this particular morning I was standing outside the main building looking out into the smouldered remains of a controlled prarie which had been burned just a few days before. The smoke was long gone by the time we arrived, but the full rounded scent of burn and earth rolled together and hung in the air, smelling next to nothing like campfire smoke. Although I had never met him, my best friend's father was a smoker, and the scent carried and lingered in my memory.