Mud and Mouse Guts

A month later and (after a string of 60 degree days) the snow is (almost) gone. All we’re left with is a few patches of white and the mudslide that used to be our driveway. Ah yes, the spring mud-- I feel like I’m in a Tolstoy novel. Every day, there’s fresh mud all over the floor and mud-covered outerwear strewn all over the place.

I’ve been thinking (with envy) about a house I was in a couple of years ago when Henry was in a playgroup with some other local kids. It was a beautiful, architect-designed pad. Not huge and ostentatious, just spacious and lovely. Of course, the mom is a muuuuch better housekeeper than I am (but that’s another story). Anyway, fabulous kitchen and living area, but the best thing about it was the mudroom. It had, as I recall, lots of shoe storage (dirty shoes in my kitchen have become the bane of my existence) and a kickass utility sink. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that a good mudroom would solve, if not all, at least a great majority of my problems. Maybe a lobotomy would solve the rest…

In other spring thaw developments: the cats have resumed their daily practice of leaving rodent organs for us on the porch (I guess 4 feet of snow made mouse hunting a little tricky). So we’re once again experiencing the joys of walking out the door and stepping on a liver.

The birds are starting to sing in the mornings, and the last few days have been lovely. The kids and I took a walk through some of our (oh so muddy) fields to a wooded area on the farm with a nice little stream running through it. Henry bent down and fished out a creek stone for his sister. She was thrilled and named it Little Rock. She was pulling up the rear as we made out way back to the house and dropped it several times. Every time, my sweet boy would run back and find it for her. We finally made it to the pond in our yard, and Henry decided to throw in a few pebbles. Then Co decided that she wanted to throw in Little Rock. “If you throw it in, we won’t be able to get it back,” I warned her. She promptly chucked it in the water and was, of course, inconsolable when it was gone. A crash course (or maybe a splash course) in causality for the babe.