What do you remember of your childhood home?

I grew up in an old farmhouse on 18 acres.  It was a beautiful property with a stream at one end and a cornfield at the other and plenty of fruit trees in between.  I remember the rug in the largest upstairs room; made up of a hundred smaller rugs all patched together in a quilt.  I remember the old kerosine heater and putting my feet up on its front grill in winter when I came in from playing in the snow and my mom would bring me hot chocolate.  I remember dancing in the kitchen with my brother and sister growing up and the old cellar door I was always afraid of when I was young. 

I used to ride my bike over to my grandma's house which was on the same property and watch tv with her and play card games.  One day, I decided to have picnic under one of the mulberry trees and when I took up the blanket, it was covered in berry juice, much to my dismay.  When I was 7 or 8, my dad built me a fort in the little stand of trees near the back of our land.  I still remember climbing up to the top of one of the tallest trees in that little grove and hanging upside down from the branches; staring at the sky.

When I got older, I could play at the stream where I'd catch salamanders and crayfish, and wander through the back field to the woods where a deer stand had been set up on the neighboring property and I'd climb up and watch the sun set.  I still miss that old life sometimes; with the swing hanging from a walnut tree and the clear spring water that poured cold from the spigot.  Life was simpler then and it lightens my heart just to remember it.