I love the smell of sagebrush, especially after it rains. I wish I could bottle up that sweet fragrance and release it in the dead of winter. To me, the first whiff of sagebrush in the spring means seasons are changing, so winter won’t last forever. The smell of sagebrush means warmer days, calves, sunshine, no coats, and branding.  

So…does sagebrush still smell in the winter? This is how I found out it does!

About ten years ago we lived on a ranch that was covered in a thick blanket of snow by the end of January. My husband was in another state with the cows on their winter range. He was gone all week and he came home on the weekends. The kids (six of them at the time) and I stayed at the ranch to take care of bulls and horses and other critters still on the ranch.

We homeschooled and we didn’t go to town too often with the bad weather. The kids and I spent a lot of time together. One day in the middle of the week – we were all getting a little cabin fever. I thought it would be healthy for us to do something different, like sledding since the weather was decent that day. We had an excellent, big, sledding hill on the ranch. The older kids helped the little kids sled down and then they pulled them back up the hill in a sled. I took some pictures and videos and went up and down the hill a few times myself.

It was refreshing to be out where walls weren’t around us and we weren’t in each other’s space. Towards the end of the afternoon, the sun was starting to go down and I was standing at the bottom of the hill. It was overcast, everything was white all around us, and it was cold. I remember unexpectedly catching a slight whiff of sagebrush in the air. How could I smell anything under all the snow and in the cold? I thought my nose was playing tricks on me, but there was the unmistakable scent of sagebrush in the air even though I could barely smell it! That hint of sagebrush in the air was a pleasant surprise to my winter-dulled senses.

Despite the gloominess of winter around us, I went back to the house renewed. I knew the snow would melt eventually and under all the snow would be the sagebrush and its sweet, desert smell.

So, yes, sagebrush does smell in the winter, but only if you take the time to stop and smell it. I did that day.