It’s that time of year when we all need to go outside and play in the dirt. Experts tell us that regular contact with healthy soil has physical and psychological benefits for adults as well as children. Go ahead and flashback to one of your childhood dirt or mud experiences. You should be smiling now.

If you’re like me, you were raised by parents who said, “Go outside and don’t come back until dinner.” We were that generation who not only played in the dirt, but made it our snack as well, with a garden hose chaser to wash it down.

The two childhood experiences that immediately came to me were the sensations of bare feet in the mud and on a grass lawn. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that it was important to me for my children to have those experiences, so we formed the “BBL.” The Barefoot Baseball League played out on our front lawn with Alex, the border collie as the designated outfielder/retriever.

Great range but not much of a throwing arm.

Scientists have long known that contact with some dirt can be good for you. Research has shown that people who grow up on farms have lower rates of Crohn’s disease, asthma, allergies and, generally, better immune systems. This is likely because of their greater exposure to a greater variety of microbes.

In the 1970s, scientists even found a soil-dwelling bacterium, mycobacterium vaccae, that has an anti-inflammatory effect on our brains, lowering stress and also improving our immune response to it.

I have some firsthand experience with this. I did not grow up on a farm, but I regularly worked on dairy farms in upstate New York as a teenager, including one live-in summer on a farm in Millbrook, New York. I made $90 that summer driving the tractor through the milk house wall, while the cows were being milked. In my defense the Allis-Chalmers tractor had a hand clutch, a foot clutch, a break, a gas pedal, stick shift and steering wheel.

A bit overwhelming for a 15-year-old. I then promptly learned how to repair a cinder block wall.

For some of you, your first reaction to the mention of Millbrook may be Timothy Leary of the 1960s. Yes, that Timothy Leary: “Tune in, turn on, drop out.” Leary was an American psychologist, Harvard professor and author who was a leading advocate for the use of LSD and other psychoactive drugs. Richard Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America.”

I bet Leary would be surprised that psychedelics are making a comeback. I was not a user nor an advocate but clearly those Woodstock attendees were ahead of their time on health, out there sliding in the mud.

Peanuts comic strip character Pig-Pen had it right all along. He should be one of our role models. I’m still unsure about embracing Dirty Harry.

Here are some ideas. Gardening is clearly the activity most appropriate for this time of year. Perhaps, you could go dig a hole with your dog or at least rub some dirt on your hands, when you step up to bat. The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day. Sorry stream of consciousness got the better of me.

Take a mountain bike ride or a hike. Camp, fish or even just take your shoes off and wade in a stream. Build a sand or mud castle or host a mud pie party.

There now, don’t you feel better already? No charge.

Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach.