An active cider mill and orchard is an amazing place to spend a fall afternoon. I spent many youthful hours deep in the countryside at a mill lovingly named Old McDonald’s Apple Orchard and Cider Mill.

Once a month, I meet with my Bunco* group. We have a meal – usually accompanied by a drink or two - followed by a mindless game of dice with the tantalizing possibility of prizes.

*For those not yet in the know, Bunco is a social game where players take turns rolling three dice in rounds to score points.

The biggest takeaway from this monthly gathering, however, is how much I learn from this group of smart and fun-loving women.

You just never know what is going to stick in your memory.

Many years ago, while listening to a sommelier, or wine expert, speak about the nuances of wine making and explain the term “veraison”, the tipping point in a grapevine's annual lifecycle, I suddenly found myself thinking of my Uncle’s grapevines.

Off to the “Mount Rushmore” state, to see the eerie stillness of the eroding caverns of the Badlands, the untouched landscape of the Black Hills, and the grandiose mountain drives, where human engineers and mother nature made one-way passages so curvy you can see yourself coming and going.

I didn’t know it then. I just know all these years later that I remember the smell. The smell of rain hitting dirt and hot pavement. The feel of the air just before it rains. How the temperature can drop 20 degrees within a few minutes or make for a steamy bath.

Members of my family were coming to visit for a special holiday. I decided to fill the house with one of my favorite scents, Belle Aroma® Balsam Peru, by diffusing it in my Esprit de Fleur™ Essential Oil Nebulizer. When they walked in, I would watch to see if anyone noticed and how they reacted.

Entering the ocean is an initiation into the world of nature’s forces, and it comes with an unforgettable smell of freshness and revival. Some say the ocean really doesn’t have a smell, but I beg to differ.

It arrived in the mail: a birthday package of Belle Aroma® Cherry Noir No-Mess Fragrance Tarts® sent as a teasing reminder of my first crush…a story this friend knows all too well.

My backyard was full of apple and cherry trees. I still remember the fragrance of them: green early apples, and, later in summer, the red Winesaps appeared. If we could beat the birds, bees, and worms to them, they made for some juicy offerings, and yes, some bellyaches for us greedier pickers. I was living the life of Jack and Jill as was shown in my first-grade reader.