I'm BAAAACK!!!

So my little trip to the homeland is being referred to by Greg as an "Amish Vacation". But, just because I spent the better part of the trip doing heavy labor in the yard is no reason to mock my trip... I'm telling you, digging out sod is a really zen activity, slow, methodical, empty your mind--it's really quite nice.

The key factor in accomplishing anything in the yard is the amount of help you get from others. My niece Jordyn, age 4, was quite the helper, especially when Grandma was gone on an errand. She really wanted to be digging with me, so Ann and I finally decided that she could dig in the vegetable garden. It's yet to be tilled, so no big deal. I used a hand rake to make "Xs" in the soil to mark the spots she could dig. Well, one thing led to another, and soon she was being encouraged to dig deeper and deeper, then to bury her little feet in the dirt as if she were planting herself. That is when inspiration struck, my friends. Struck with the force of a pickax. (No, I didn't get to use one of those, I'm sorry to say.)

"Perhaps, she'd grow if she were watered?"

I looked at Ann, she looked and me, shrugged and said, "What the heck, I used to play in the mud all the time." I went and filled the watering can and returned to water Jordyn's buried toes. When I returned with the second can of water, she was pretty coated from the shins and forearms down. When I returned with the third, she was jumping up and down, shrieking like a banshee and splashing thick black mud all over, including into her newly cut and styled hair. By the time Grandma got home, she was covered from biceps and thighs down. Then came the moment we'd all been waiting for...the wipeout. She was mud from mid-back on down, half an inch thick and peeling off in strips as it started to dry.

In the end, Ann had to strip her naked under the outdoor faucet because she was just too muddy to be carried through the kitchen to the bathroom. Ann and I thought the whole thing was hysterical from start to finish. We were laughing almost as much as Jordyn and while my mom kept shaking her head at the whole mess, it didn't stop her from taking lots of pictures of the little wallower.

PS. I didn't really do any more yardwork that day.