Here are three photos of potential scent work sites at or very near our home:
This first site is our back yard. Largely prairie vegetation–by the end of summer the big bluestem will be 6-7 feet high. For now, though, its cover is appropriate for Mo; I’m guessing he and the cover will grow together, so that by the time it is higher and thicker he’ll be comfortable in it. But I’ll monitor that!
Morning, raining, wind coming from the left side, target in the left 1/3: I would approach the hill from the bottom right, quartering with Mo diagonally across the hill as I cover the area from bottom right to top left. There could be eddies behind the small trees center left and the fenced bush in the center.
Fall, afternoon, hot day: air would definitely be moving up the hill as well as across from left to right. I would approach the site from the top right of the photo, at the top of the hill, and quarter with Mo diagonally across the hill working from the top right of the photo to the lower left.
This next site is across the road from our house. As in the previous photo, I am looking upslope. I would approach the cool rainy and the hot dry scenarios just as I described for the first site. Possibility of eddies at the trees center left (I swear I didn’t try to replicate the structures of the first picture!). When it is hot, strong possibility of plumes over the areas of dark basaltic stone exposed in various places on this site, as visible in the foreground.
This site is close to the previous one; I chose it because it presents a relatively simple wooded scene with ground cover that will remain low through the year (lilly of the valley, low ferns, and logger’s leaf). I shot the photo facing across the slope. Thus, if the wind is blowing left to right it would be coming uphill. On a cool, rainy day I would expect the moisture and the fact that the wind would be fighting against any possible katabatic currents to keep the scent holding fairly tightly in place. I would assess the strength of the wind and, assuming air currents were indeed moving uphill, I would start on the right and quarter across the slope perpendicular to the fall line, working from right to left. Possibility of an eddy to the right of the large tree trunk at the right of the photo.On a hot, dry afternoon I would expect scenting conditions to be more difficult and the scent to be dispersed more quickly up the slope. I would still quarter in the same pattern, moving right to left. I wouldn’t anticipate plumes of scent in a shaded, canopied area but it is possible that scent would move upward on the downhill side of the large tree trunk, since it is a physical obstacle to uphill movement and because the tree’s higher, broader canopy creates a larger opening in the understory. Still there is a possibility of an eddy behind the trunk (on the uphill side).