Sweet Somethings

From the first time I visited the west when I was 15 (well 2nd time...the first time I was only 4 and don't remember) I have loved the smell of the creeks and rivers in the summer. Biking or walking on the trails next to it or even just driving by it I could smell that sweet fragrance. I could never figure out what was causing the smell. I thought that maybe it was the sagebrush somehow causing the water to smell sweet (i like the smell of sagebrush too). Yesterday, down by the irrigation ditch, we were jumping on the trampoline. There were sticky little leavey things all over the tramp and the ground. They were getting all over my feet and on the kids feet, clothes, hands, and in their hair as they played "run around the beetle" (a game Spencer and Kate made up) on the trampoline. But that smell!! It was the same smell I love from the western waters. It was the little sticky leaves, coming from the trees that line the ditch. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is but I am guessing river birch. Anyone know? They have white bark. (I would take a picture but our camera is in for repairs). I washed Spencer's and Kate's hair but not Ezra's and I can still smell that sweet something on his head. MMM mmmm.