I really, really like being barefooted. I realized this a couple days ago when in the course of my vacation we made some plans to take a hike. Something which requires shoes, and good protective ones, at that.

Sure, it was a lovely hike through some pristine woods, and I enjoyed it immensely. But the sheer pleasure of taking off my shoes was enormous by comparison. How happy my little toes and soles to roam and sense the world! How pleased indeed!

Since then, I’m back to my usual barefooted summer routine. I am noticing more and more things about the house we are staying in based on the textures of the floors. There’s quite a lovely variety. Right now, I am sitting in the screened-in porch, the floor of which is tiled with what feels like some kind of genuine stones. They are smooth, but not too smooth, and quite cold. I don’t mind having my toes be a bit cold, as long as they are not too cold.

The majority of the floors are hard wood, and in wonderful condition; smooth and shiny, with a slightly springy feel to them. My feet walk along the surface of these wooden floors, taking in that comfort of smooth wood. There are two dogs staying here with me, and my feet tell me there’s little clusters of dog hair and this is sometimes irksome, so I did a bit of sweeping up not long ago.

The staircase has a soft and tasteful oriental carpet tacked down to it, which runs up the middle of stairs. There’s enough room on either side of the carpet to see and step on, if you like, the hard wood that runs underneath. Knowing that smooth wood is there makes me feel pleased.

Some throw rugs complete the flooring. This is great for when you get a little gunk on your feet and you just have to tread gently across a more absorptive surface, something that you can brush off the doggy hair onto. The floors in my humble home are far from fun to tread on. There’s cracked wood, even holes in places; and what’s more it seems to be pretty much always sticky.

Outside, there’s a lot of grass which is kind of dried out, but still pleasant to walk on. It hasn’t been watered much this summer, I guess, and that’s ok with me. There’s just too much lawn here to be wasting water on it. The result is a brownish lawn, but soft if scraggly on my feet. There’s an occasional pine cone that I have stepped on, but my soles are tough enough to tolerate that.

My soles do not like the rough gravel of the driveway, but the brick path to the  car is nubbly and rough in a good way. Across the wide lawn of grass there’s a place we’re calling the Fairy Glade. You walk on a soft, pine needled covered pathway through the trees, and there’s an Adirondack Lean-to, a rustic little stage that is made of rough-hewn logs. As long as you don’t get a splinter, the texture is also interesting to walk on. Barefooted.

There’s a hot tub under the deck, with a marvelously textured bottom. It is not smooth, but slightly studded, rough but not scratchy. It’s got to be the nicest hot tub I’ve ever had the privilege to be in. Barefooted. Bare naked, too, if you want to know the truth.

Someone not long ago, on a blog I read, pointed out that if you have twins, you have to learn to do stuff with your toes because your hands are full. I am not a mother of twins, but I have been known to have my hands full on occasion, and let me tell ya, using your feet for things is great! I pick things up with my toes a lot. So being trapped up in dratty old shoes is just not good for me.

It will be another story altogether, when winter comes and my poor little piggies will have to seek refuge in fuzzy warm socks and shoes.