I remember distinctly while growing up, my mother making sure I had enough fresh air, no matter what the weather. She also taught me to appreciate nature around me.

In the autumn, the leaves that had fallen to the ground always smelled warm and smoky; even before being thrown into a brush fire pit.

The winter brought sledding outside down whatever small hill would lend itself to us. Traveling down the hill at what felt like the speed of light and the thrill of hitting a bump, tossed into the air, and the laughter of being covered from head to toe in the glistening white powder.  Sometimes you would inadvertently hit a tree no matter how hard you tried to steer away from it (and if you were on a small plastic saucer you didn’t have a prayer to not something), and then BAM, thrown off the sled into a bush (if you were lucky) or onto hardened snow, ouchies.  No one wants cold boogers frozen to your face, so the tears would have to just wait.  All in all, the cold fresh air made us feel alive and the scars are always a conversation piece.

In the summer when the sun shone through the windows, it is a no brainer…who wants to stay indoors on a beautiful sunny day? We have such a short summer season as it is so get out there and enjoy it. (Plus it is always better than doing house choirs like dusting!) The blue sky, cotton ball clouds, and leaves so green they hummed with life, blew in every gentle breeze. Even on rainy summer days, I could be found outside, cartoon character umbrella above me, in the gutter of the street, trying to build a dam or floating a few pieces of grass in a race, and then looking skyward for the rainbow.

But the spring, well now, this is a very special season at my home. The new arrived robins who would sing songs of their travels and birth of their young yet to come would resonate throughout the morning. The hundreds of flowers my father painstakingly spent all winter to cultivate the previous year, from cellar and then to small, but adequate, flower hut would begin to rise through the earth frozen in time by the longer winter past.

It is this freshly opened soil that, when soaked with the springs rains, smelled the most beautiful earthly smell you could ever imagine.

From the Daily Post question: home, soil, rain