{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on its title to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}
There are few scents that I love more in the whole vast, wonderful world than that of wood smoke. Be it from a campfire nestled in the woods, on the beach, in a backyard, or wafting out of a chimney. With a little less than a month to go until winter officially wraps up, and in reality, probably two or more months until spring really starts to burst to life again here, there is, thankfully, still plenty of time for me to continue getting my annual fix of wood smoke.
I woke up today on a snow covered, perfectly still morning in February thinking about this fact. We don't have a fireplace at our house, but many throughout town do, and I love that if I threw open the window right now, chances are, that cozy, fragrant, timeless aroma would come barreling in to the room within seconds.
This thought then set me thinking about the colours of the flames that are integral for producing a fire. Intense reds, glowing yellows, sizzling oranges, and the occasional flash of pale blue or icy white. This palette seems particularly well suited to winter, because so many of its key players are the polar opposite of the freezing weather, pale landscape, and ash hued skies above.
We bring fire into our homes during these long, frozen months to warm our room, hands, and souls alike, but I think we also flock to the flames because of the fact that they're rather redolent of the sun's surface, blinding summer light, and that half of the year when the potential for frostbite is the last thing on your mind.
Man has harnessed fire, but it's still raw, still primal, still tremendously powerful, and no matter how modernized we get, we'll likely never stop using it in some capacity. It's too integral to life on this planet itself, and that suits me just fine. I could scarcely imagine winter without the scent of wood smoke lingering heavily in the air, bringing back an avalanche of memories from years past, while also putting me in the mood to roast plenty of delicious marshmallows – undoubtedly one of the best uses ever discovered for the mighty force of an open flame. :)
