Over on Time Stand Still, I posted a picture taken the morning we headed to Shipshewana....here is one taken on the way home. One of these days we want to go back up there...but that is not the point of the post.The rain just looks so appealing...today the temperature finally went up to over a 104º...I don't remember if it was 104.2 or 104.6º, but people that is hot. I sat out in the swing for about 20 minutes this evening and the swing frame was hot to touch and it is in the shade all day. Needless to say...rain sounds good right now.
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A while back it crossed my mind that in Tennessee we could hear the rain coming....do any of you know what I am talking about. It has something to do with being in the mountains....you could look back towards the mountain and tell it was raining and you could also hear it...even though it was mile or more away. I guess the sound sort of echoed....or else it is sort of how you can cup your hand behind your ear and hear better...the mountains was wrapped around the rain and the sound was amplified.
I do get tired of rain when it rains and rains and rains, but as a general rule, I love rain. I loved it as a kid...if someone was available to play with, we would head to the barn to do something. We could always find something to do there. Whether it was swings, play with a calf, play in the hay if there was any--which we were definitely NOT supposed to do...but we did anyway. And it wasn't that we did these only when it rained...
I can remember my niece and I swinging on swings and trying to kick our flip flops high enough to hit the roof....and I can remember us taking grass string and looping it together to make a long line of it, and running it through a crack in the floor of the loft. We would tie the end up there to something to keep it from falling on through....and then on the end hanging down below, we would tie an empty bleach jug or whatever kind of plastic jug we could find but I do believe it was usually a bleach jug....then we would take a
But we would hit it as hard as we could...and sometime strike it more in a downward motion which made it jump all crazy. Laughter rang out with each hit....and now I am not even sure why it was so funny. I just remember laughing till we cried sometimes...
If no one was available, and sometimes even if there was, there was always a book calling my name. Sometimes I sat on the porch and read, and sometimes headed to the barn and read. At one time we had an old mattress up there...where it came from is more than I know. And I don't know what ever happened to it.
But my niece and I had it out across a couple of the tier poles we used to hang tobacco on...we would get out on it and read.
I guess this and some of the other childhood posts explains why I love barns so much.
We love when it rains too and I remember when the kids were small if it wasn't lightning out the kids and Jim would run around in it.
ReplyDeleteI can see why you like barns so much. They were the greatest places to play when I was a kid as well. We finally got a little rain today. It wasn't much, but it did make things a little cooler.
ReplyDeleteHi Rose, I love rain so much also... I do remember when growing up in Big Stone Gap, that we could sit on the porch and hear the rain -and thunder--as it bounced off of the mountains... SO NEAT....
ReplyDeleteWe got lucky today.. In all of this heat, we got some rain --and it cooled us off a little. Thanks be to God...
Hugs,
Betsy
I enjoyed this. I remember summers as good also, but I lived in a town (this town of Barnesville actually) and I rode my bike to the pool most every day.
ReplyDeleteIn the evening I would play hide-n-seek with the neighbor boys (I was the only girl). In the early evenings or some afternoons we would play kick ball. And there was always a book close by for me too. I would sit in the shade of a huge tree in our tiny yard and read.
Good memories.
As for rain, not to be a downer, but I don't feel the same about it ever since my daughter hydroplaned in a horrendous downpour and hit a tree head-on. She broke her neck and her left leg in two places.
She's fine now and actually was after 5 months of wearing a metal halo screwed into her head and some weeks with a cast. She was
16. She's 35 now, but I still shudder when I hear a downpour.
i would love to hear the rain coming from the mountains. that sounds marvelous.
ReplyDeletenothing better than growing up on a farm. my first 13 yrs were that way - tootling around the barn or sheds, climbing trees, walking in the crop fields and pastures down to the creek for hours on end.
Wonderful memories and told so beautifully. I hope it cools off there and everywhere soon.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, the barn was a great attraction for me as well. It was always so still in there, and warm, and even then I loved how the shafts of sunlight would get through the cracks and set the dust to glowing. Ah, memories.
ReplyDeleteYou're a good story teller and this is an interesting example.
ReplyDeleteI can just picture all this in my head. What a wonderful childhood you must have had and what a special place to live. Where does that sheer joy all go as we get older, now we would never laugh at a thing like that. Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he talks about being like a little child.
ReplyDeleteSummer rains are the best! I would dearly love for it to rain right now. :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. My dad had a barn when he was a kid and would tell stories similar to yours. Growing up, I loved to read on the screened-in porch under the shade of the trees. Wishing you a nice weekend.
ReplyDeleteI love your memories! Wish I had known you as a child...we would have had fun together :-) I just posted my Shipshewana photos today, finally. I want to go back too before the end of Oct. when the flea markets end. Maybe we should meet up there.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great memory! I like that you laughed and the laugh is part of the memory even though you can't recall what was so funny. Awesome feeling.
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