“Reading, books and libraries became a passion of mine, because I’ve always loved reading since I was itty bitty,” said Hake, who still owns property in Falls City but spends most her time with her husband in Crooked River Ranch in Central Oregon.

Now 68, Hake has honed her skills toward a new endeavor, combining her two loves into a children’s picture book - “The Smell of Spring.”

“I’ve always loved picture books. I’d written things in the past for traditional publications. Stuff in Christian and secular magazines. Now that self-publishing is so accessible, I decided to go that route. Because it gets it out there quicker,” Hake said. “I’ve known a lot of writers who’ve been successful. I decided I’d earned enough money from editing other writers, that I’d try it out.”

Hake had taken a children’s “book camp” online that encouraged developing an idea then seeing how much further it could be crafted. Hake had an idea for spring but wanted to expand it for children to enjoy it more.

She began crafting her tale of a young girl, April, who enjoys the scents of the season, but it needed a twist.

“I began thinking of ways to add to it,” she said. “I thought, “What if she was blind?” and went with that. Because it adds another element for children to be aware people are maybe different. I wanted to show her as normal a child as possible. She can still use her other senses.”

While crafting the tale, she worked with GetYourBookIllustrations to realize the look of a blind child enjoying the scents of spring.

“I liked the way they did the illustrations. They should have her eyes closed, so it’s obvious she’s not looking. The illustrator came up with the idea of swirls to represent the smell,” Hake said.

She even got to give input to the illustrator to include recurring characters for the young readers to spot, like the skunk who lets a friendly dog know it got too close.

“I threw in some humor because not all spring smells are pleasant,” Hake added.

Written for readers ages 4-8, Hake said “The Smell of Spring” fits in well with educational marks of children learning about weather and seasons, senses and disabilities.

“I have a daughter who has taught at elementary schools. She said, ‘Oh yeah, I could teach with that too. I could do so much with that.’ I get advice from her, too, because she’s a reading specialist. She knows more about that, so it’s helpful,” Hake said.

One of the challenges she overcame writing for a picture book was scaling back her prose to let the images tell more of the story. She tried to stick to four lines or so to each page while making them rhyme.

“At first, I tried to rhyme. Then the teacher said I should write it all out in prose first because if you don’t have a good story that you can tell, you’re not going to make it better by rhyming,” Hake explained. “I kept revising and took classes online about rhyming to improve that, even though I’ve taken poetry classes over the years.”

The dictionary became her best friend, making sure she used the right words which had the correct emphasis on the right syllable within the rhyme.

“I wanted it to be fun to read, but also didn’t want to give a bad example in mispronouncing things,” she said.

Barely finished with the first book, Hake had the thought she could let her young character April experience the scents of every season in successive books. She began brainstorming ideas for “The Smell of Summer.” She kept the same illustrator to keep the look consistent. The book would be published in time for the appropriate season.

She’s decided to limit her output to the first two seasons in the series, having discovered the publishing process was a little more expensive than first anticipated.

The idea proved to be a success. When published in December, “The Smell of Spring” vaulted to number one in Amazon’s sense of smell category (yep, that’s a thing) and for a short period of time, No. 1 in poetry, even above the renowned.

“It was fun to be up there with all the famous (authors), even Dr. Seuss,” she said.

For now, she’s sticking to just concentrating on the promotion and publishing of the first two books this year then revisit the next two for next year.

“By the end of year, I’ll have a better feel on how they’re selling,” Hake said.

In the meantime, she continues her varied writing projects, including being in the middle of a novel she’d like to finish, (which a couple of publishers have considered but haven’t accepted just yet). She also edits copy for others, including cozy mystery writer Christy Barritt, who churns out new novels seemingly monthly.

“As long as my brain works ok, I don’t think I will stop writing. I’ll probably stop editing before I stop writing,” she said.

She still has lots of ideas that she continues to send in pieces to periodicals, too.

“It fits in with what I love. I want to encourage readers,” Hake said. “So far, I’ve gotten good reviews. The children enjoy it, and that was the whole reason for doing it.”