It is raining.

It is times like these I so very much wish I had a screened-in porch on my house with a rocking chair, but I don’t. So, instead, I stand at my front door, listen, and watch the drops of clear water fall from the sky for a while. I even open my "screen door" (which is actually a glass door) so I can feel the cool air and a bit of the mist on my face. I do this pretty much every time it rains; it brings back a sweet memory of my childhood.

I grew up on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. On days like today, my father and I would sit at the large door of the barn and watch and listen to the rain. Oh, it was grand to sit in there and listen to each individual drop hit the tin roof of that structure. The smells of the stored hay in the loft, the axle grease from the tractor, the dirt from the gravel road as it turned to mud, still waft around as I think about that old barn. Sometimes the rain was a gentle wash of the air, like cleaning your face before you sat down to dinner. Then there were times it was a full-blown gully washer that made kid-size rivers and streams just big enough to splash and play in.

Yep, there were times I would cross the boundary of the door and step out into that sweet liquid falling from the sky. Daddy would watch as I sank my toes into the mud and he would say, “Clean your feet before you go in the house.” That meant to find a clean puddle close to the house and get off as much mud as you could before going inside.

On days like today, I let the rain take me back home to the farm. My father and I are once again sitting in the doorway of the barn listening to the rain hit the tin roof. What the heck, I just might go out and stick my toes in the mud.