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The Nose Knows LbNA #4500 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Jun 27, 2003
Location:
City:Walled Lake
County:Oakland
State:Michigan
Boxes:1
Planted by:Delirium
Found by: cosmablu
Last found:Jun 7, 2015
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFr
Last edited:Nov 10, 2015
THIS BOX HAS BEEN PULLED. IT WILL BE REPLANTED IN MISSISSIPPI SOMETIME AFTER THE NEW YEAR. I'M KEEPING THE CLUES LISTED BECAUSE I LIKE THEM SO MUCH AND I'M TOO LAZY TO COPY AND PASTE THEM SOMEWHERE. CHEERS, DELIRIUM

"The Nose Knows"
**THIS IS A REPLACEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL BOX, WHICH WENT MISSING. IT IS A NEW STAMP, AND (slightly) NEW LOCATION**

"Salmon can smell the distant waters of their birth, toward which they must swim to spawn. A male butterfly can home in on the scent of a female that is miles away. Pity us, the long, tall, upright ones, whose sense of smell has weakened over time. When we are told that a human has five million olfactory cells, it seems like a lot. But a sheepdog, which has 220 million, can smell fourty-four times better than we can. What does it smell? What are we missing? Just imagine the stereophonic world of aromas we must pass through, like sleepwalkers without headphones."
-from A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman

A person visits a park and is taken by its beauty. Yet the common visitor will probably only employ two senses during the visit- sight and sound. How sad that must make the park!

There are the twin ponds. Imagine the coolness of the water, rippling over your hands. For the brave, the taste of such cool green water would be like an aquatic salad against your tongue.

There is the gravel path. Hear the crunch beneath your shoes, feel the dust settle around your ankles. There will be bees gathering pollen from the flowers, their pollen sacs bulging and bright.

There is the covered bridge. Hear the dragonflies rush past. If you brought a picnic, notice the way all food tastes better when eaten at a table outside.

Do only this, take the path to the bridge, and you would miss the heart of the park. It's not in the views. It's not in the sounds of the birds or the feel of the breeze from the pond. The heart of nature lies in the aromas.

We think because we can smell. Our brains were built up around our olfactory center; scents can whisk us back in time and wrap our memories in knots, so breathe deeply.

The park in spring smells of thawing earth. Of mud and worms. On warm days, you can smell things growing, green and hopeful.

In summer, the air speaks to our noses of thunderstorms, of wildflowers in their riot of perfume and the swampy wonder of the path before you. Follow it. Breathe deeply.

180 paces down the path from the end of the bridge. How many breaths does that translate to?
Close your eyes and you can't see. Cover your ears and you can't hear. Stop breathing and you die.

180 paces down that path. The autumn park will smell of smoke, and dying leaves. Frost perhaps, or the dusky smells of the last sunny days.

Winter brings the smell of ice. The smell of snow. The smell of your scarf as you wrap it around your face.

Breathe.

180 paces. To your right, there is a tree that begins as one and ends as four. What does it smell like? At the base, hidden by a rotting log and bark, there is a hollow. Find the box.

Breathe.


The box is located in Robert Long Park which is in the northwest corner of M-5 and 14 mile roads. The park is small, but does have a picnic table on the bridge. The most wonderful part, though, is its birds. The ponds are spring-fed, so if you come in late winter/early spring, you will see an amazing assortment of waterbirds. Bring your binoculars! I'm an avid birder, and I've seen some birds there that I've seen nowhere else!
Please email me with the status of this box at donaldson_home@yahoo.com