Mud's Benefits

[SmileyMcDeath]

I sprained my right knee while trying to extract my legs from a mudhole that turned out to be too narrow and too shallow to really sink in.

Most of my favorite pits were located near blackberry and dewberry thickets. Getting thwomped in the nuts with a thorny blackberry cane is an experience you don't forget quickly. That's one of the reasons I started waiting until I was actually at the pit before I disrobed. I wore shorts, so my legs tended to be covered with teeny cuts from the blackberry bushes. I stepped on some of them barefoot as well.

I've got a scar on my left foot where I cut it open on someone's broken bottle at a clay pool at a gravel pit.

At the same pit, I once discovered that fire ants had decided to make a go of colonizing the couple of inches of harder, drier clay and sand over the mudpit itself. I discovered this after I was waist-deep in the mud, which probably amply demonstrates my lack of observational skills. I drowned as many of the little bastards as I could, but when I finally emerged from the pit, i was covered in scores of painful little welts and blisters.

While cleaning up in one of the ponds, I stepped on a catfish. I didn't get horned, but I'm not sure who was more startled--the fish or me. I also became acquainted with water moccasins and rattlesnakes, as I WAS in their home. Fortunately, I'm not particularly frightened of snakes, and most of them were perfectly happy not to bother me, as long as I didn't bother them.

I DID see a lot of interesting plants and wildlife. I occasionally brought home a few fresh-caught fish for a tasty meal, and those same blackberry and dewberry stands that were the bane of my sinks also supplied berries for some of the most delicious pies I've ever eaten. I wouldn't have found the pawpaws or the chestnut trees otherwise, and there's nothing quite like lying virtually immobile in a deep clay pool on a warm summer's afternoon for a few hours, feeling as if you're getting a massage with happy ending from Mother Earth herself. I can claim those as benefits.

All in all, it's been worth it.