Fall Leaves.... a gift from Home.

Look what I received in the mail just the other day. 

Leaves! 

Do you think it's an odd gift? I don't, I thought it was AWESOME! 

I had been complaining on Facebook about the lack of fall leaves out here in SW Kansas and how much I missed the autumn season back home in Indiana. My wonderful mother took pity on me and sent me a box of leaves, still slightly damp...

.....and smelling wonderful! I thrust my nose straight into the fiery colors and immediately felt myself back in the Indiana woods I grew up in. I was rolling in piles of maple leaves with my sisters, walking trails in the woods kicking up thick layers of wet leaves, swinging on wild grapevines and cutting up trees that my dad had felled. Though cutting wood, for our wood burning stove, with Dad was never one of my favorite childhood chores I think I'd trade just about anything to have the chance to go back in time, to home, and do it again. 

Amazing the memories just a smell can invoke. 

I used to think my favorite smell was the soil from a freshly plowed field. The earthiness, the deep smell. 

Now I'm thinking the rich smell of autumn leaves still damp with dew may be my favorite. Or maybe they are one and the same. Soil and Leaves...both of Earth...and Home. 

Maybe this is what my Heaven will smell like.