Summer is for beaches and camping and berry picking…but sometimes summer can be such a blur of activity and juggling schedules that before we know it, our families are facing back to school and we realize that there are some old summer standbys that we never got the chance to experience…
I grew up in the country–on the side of a mountain in the Pacific Northwest and, despite the danger and the discomfort–I spent a big chunk of my childhood in bare feet. After all, it wasn’t summer until I had both stepped on a nail and a bee–it was that first bee sting from the unsuspecting Yellow Jacket or Wasp that really signaled that summer was in full force. My own children have grown up mostly in the city. Granted, my kids and I do not live in a large metropolitan city, but city enough that going barefoot all summer long isn’t always an option. They don’t have the cracked and calloused feet their mother earned from growing up on the side of a mountain–but they also don’t get to experience the freedom and joys of spending an entire day outside without shoes!
I must be some sort of misplaced Transcendentalist because I really do think that everyone needs to take the occasional barefoot walk, try to maneuver across dry grass or the gravel road without the benefit of shoes, roll up your raggedy jeans and walk through a garden or across an orchard in your bare feet and generally feel the full force of a summer earth pulsing up through the soles of your feet. Sure, running bare foot in a well-manicured park is nice and feels fabulous, but to really experience summer–you have got to get out there and trudge around without your shoes for a while!
Also: Summer Activity–Writing a Family Biography
Berry Picking is a Great Family Summer Activity