Puddle Hopping!

Puddle hopping is one of a child's rights. I feel that every child should play in the rain as long as it is not freezing cold outside. This week we have had beautiful weather. It has been in the 60s all week. The sad part of it all is that we are going to be getting a cold front and all the rain is turning into snow!

When I was a kid I remember playing in the rain all the time. I loved going outside and playing in all the puddles. We had a fairly large back yard that ran at a slight slant. When it rained the water would run down our backyard and fill up in puddles at the bottom of the
yard. It was the perfect place to puddle hop! I also loved when mom would let us go outside the gate. There was a ditch right outside our yard that was dug out to help drain rain water. It would rain down past our house and two of our neighbors houses. I remember putting sticks in the "stream" (as a kid you have no concept of city drainage it was just a stream to us) and racing Andrea's stick down to the end where it would dump into a huge receptical before going underground (to go under a road) only to emerge again on the other side of the street. I used to always be
scared because this receptical was a good 10 feet deep with swirling water. I knew better than to get to close. But up by my house I am sure the water never got more than 2-3 feet deep. Most of the time it was not more than 6 inches to a foot.

It was always a big deal when it would rain so much that the stream overflowed. I loved running out there and talking about how much water there was. My mom was always so much fun letting us run all around in the rain. I also remember that my mom and dad had a rain gauge and they would always measure how much rain had fallen. Most of the time there was less than a inch in there but sometimes there was one to two inches. It was always a big deal on who got to dump out the gauge. Andrea and I would fight about that.

On really rainy days when the sun would go down my mom would set a fire in the fireplace. I loved laying on the floor in front of the fire. Of course one of the things about having a fireplace means that you have to have firewood. Andrea and I had a job to make sure that there was always enough firewood in the storage beside the fireplace. We would go outside and see how many pieces we could carry in at one time. I remember standing outside and saying "Andrea load me up!" She would stack 4-5 pieces on my arms and I would run inside trying not to drop any. I knew that if I did drop them I would get in trouble for tracking dirt all over the floor. Sometimes if we did not get enough wood in before it rained the wood would get all wet and muddy. Then when we put it in the fire it would make really loud cracking sounds. I thought it sounded cool, but mom and dad did not think it was very cool. I think mainly because sparks would fly out of the fireplace and land on the rug, burning a hole in the rug.

One of my favorite things to do with the firewood was to play outside on it. I would climb on the pile of wood. I would also take the wood and make an outline of a house in the grass. I would have a kitchen, bedrooms, and even a bathroom. I used to drag all kinds of toys, pillows and things out to "my house". I would get mad at Andrea because she liked to "walk through the walls" instead of using the "clearly" marked doors. I would play in there for hours. I always found that it was unfair that at the end of the day mom would make us clean up all the firewood. I would get my house just like I wanted it and then I would have to clean it all up and rebuild it again the next day. I did not realize that by leaving the firewood out on the grass it would kill the grass. I just thought mom was being mean! KIDS!

I also remember that we would pooper scoop the yard and the pile of poo was always near the big wood pile in the back. It was really stinky back there! I often would find termite holes back there. I loved when mom and dad would pour kerosene down the termite holes and set them on fire. That was always a highlight. I could go on and on with childhood memories but I will save that for another blog. In the meantime enjoy the pictures of Daniel jumping in the rain.