Petrichor: the smell of rain on the dry earth. There is something magical about that scent. I remember living in an old farmhouse back in the early ’80s. Even though it was in a highly populated urban area, it was the farmhouse for the original land that was subsequently developed with the housing boom after WW2. The house had huge trees around it and large windows you could fling open wide to let in the fresh summer breeze. It always stayed cool with thick walls of buff-colored brick and heavy, dark wood inside. For some reason, when I smell the scent of rain, my mind conjures up that house.

We were poor as church mice. Hubby #2 was an intern so my daughter and I were on our own a lot. I baked our bread…made our yogurt. I even made homemade tofu. We had a VW van camper. I read Mother Earth News religiously. I wore cut offs and football jerseys and went barefoot everywhere. We listened to the classical station and PBS. We gathered together to listen to Prairie Home Companion while I crocheted or quilted. I canned our food and made jams, jellies, pickles. We gave the only bedroom to my daughter and we slept out on the sun porch which, trust me, was colder than you know what in the winter!

But, summer….ahhhhh, glorious summer, with its thunderstorms and barbecues and bike rides is the stuff of legend. It is what gets us through the dark days of winter…the memories of the scent of rain.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone…let freedom ring!

❤️

“Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.”

Hebrews 6:7 NIV