Mud Holes

Two great truths of life.

Girls like kittens.  Boys like mud.

I don't know what the attraction is, but if there is a mud hole a boy will find it.  I rediscovered this fact while on an outing with the grandsons to pick up walnuts.  It's become a fall tradition to gather the usually abundant walnuts during fall break.  The walnuts are then sold for "pocket money" to a local dealer.  Usually this involves the oldest grandson and grandma spending a sunny fall afternoon gathering the big, green globes while visiting.  This year was a little different.

I looked up one afternoon to discover the four-wheeler and cart pulling up to the back door.   The cart was already loaded with a cooler, feed sacks, buckets, and two grinning grandsons.  The third was grinning from the four-wheeler, as he braked to a stop, calling, "Jo-Jo--come on.  It's time to pick up walnuts!"  Laughing I grabbed some gloves (the things stain your hands brown) and climbed on behind him.  Off we went with the little grandsons bouncing around in the cart like peas in a bucket. 

The first trees we found were surrounded by poison ivy and had few walnuts, so we passed them by.  Continuing on our trek down the creek we finally found a large tree on the bank with a fair number of nuts.  We all piled out and began picking up the bounty and throwing it in the buckets.  We soon had the ground cleaned up and discovered we could reach a lower branch.  Vigorous shaking created a veritable hail storm of nuts.  The little boys were excitedly running around collecting the new "windfall" of nuts when the older grandson decided to move the four-wheeler closer to the now heavy buckets.

Hearing the little boys laughter, I looked up from my gathering, to see the four-wheeler and cart stranded axle-deep in a mud hole.  The grandson was pouring on the gas and rapidly digging himself in deeper and deeper.  I looked around in disbelief--he had literally found the only mud hole in the whole field!! I marched over, scolding and laughing equally, to see how we were going to get out of this mess.  Naturally, I had forgotten my phone so it was either get "unstuck" or face the long walk to the barn for help. 

We tried everything--rocking it back and forward, putting branches under the wheels, hunting rocks, but for every foot we worked forward we would lose a foot and a half.  (Mostly because grandson just couldn't resist the chance to spin the tires in the gooey mess.)  It wasn't long before the cart, bags of walnuts, cooler and boys were splattered with thick mud.  Grandson is long on hard-headiness and short on patience, so it took some yelling to convince him to unhook the trailer.  With that the four wheeler plowed on out of the mud and he was able to return to the barn for a chain to pull out the wagon.  He soon returned, a little sheepish from the ribbing from the men at the barn, and in short order we had the cart out.

Muddied but not finished,we decided to try one more tree, located uphill from the creek just below the feed barn.  This venerable old tree is huge and probably as old as the farm.  Upon sighting it we all cheered as it was loaded with hundreds of walnuts.  We loaded up all the ones on the ground and then took turns retrieving the chunks of wood that the oldest would throw up into the tree to dislodge more nuts.  The little boys soon tired of this sport and wandered off to play. 

We were busy filling our buckets when a childish wail hit our ears.  We both turned to see what mischief the two little ones had gotten into.  It took a minute to figure out why they were standing in the corner of the fence wailing.  Then it hit us -- they were literally stuck in another mud hole.  The littlest one had marched out into a mud hole where the cows had churned the mud to a bottomless quagmire of goo, there he had sunk until he was unable to pull his feet out of the gunk.  The older one had tried to reach him to help, only to discover he was caught too.  As we watched in amazement, a foot popped out of a boot and with flailing arms boy plopped into mud. 

With a look of resignation, the fifteen year old grandson waded into the muck and plucked the two boys out.  Gingerly setting them on the ground we surveyed the disaster.  I'm not sure their own mother would have recognized them.  We gathered them up, dumped them in the cart and hauled them to the barn.  Once there we literally turned the water hose on them until the worst of the mud was washed off. 

Finally, cleaner and with a cookie or two to refresh them, they mumbled thanks for the rescue.  I just looked at them and shook my head.  "Thank your brother", I said with a grimace, "I wouldn't have waded into that mess for you.  I would have left you there!"

With a shocked look they glanced from me to their brother and back.  You could see them wondering if grandma really would have left them stuck in the mud. 

Trust me--I would have!  I'm a girl.  I like kittens.