Michigan

In the movie "Easter Parade", there is a song Judy Garland sings about wishing she could go back to Michigan and be on the farm again. Although a huge part of this is romanticized (I don't know anyone who would be happy being woken up at 4 a.m.), there is an element of truth in her song. I never thought I would say this, but I have a nostalgia for the different farms I have lived on- and more specifically, the soil that made them places for growing and cultivating.
My Grandpa's was dirty with dry, loose dust floating above my sneakers as I walked. And with every step, the dirt would linger on my ankles just a little longer than the step before. I hesitated to inhale too quickly for fear the whole top layer of dirt would get clogged in my lungs, and when I sneezed it out, I would cause the dust bowl to erupt all over the wide West. I At the end of the day who ever had been walking with me and I would sit on the lawn in back of the farm house and trail our fingers along the skin closest to the gap between where our pants ended and our socks began. The deeper the furrow our fingers made in the dust, the harder we had played.
The second farm had a sticky layer of clay that suffocated the rich soil under the plant life. After it rained, the clay was glorious. It was as if with every layer coated upon our bare feet was a bath of natures finest brownie mix fresh from Mother Earth's great bakery. Great chunks of the clay would sometimes ooze out of the barrier which prevented the weeds in mom's flower beds from overflowing onto our lawn. This pieces of earth were pies in the making- another gift mother earth gave us in exchange for a few tears or smiles.