So, I was looking through pictures on my computer and came across some winners that never made it to facebook (for good reason) But I decided all of the sudden that it was such a happy memory I wanted to make it known. But first.. there is a story behind the picture.
So, WAY back a LONG LONG time ago before I was old enough to have claimed to develop much common sense and what not. Way back when brilliant ideas are instantly acted upon and tend not to turn out the way one is originally hoping, back when we're told to dream big and our results are always small... back when I was just an 18 year old caught in the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, my brother Ken and I had a BRILLIANT idea.
So, when we were younger, my father kept about 50 live alligators in our basement in some pond liners. (They're like kitty pools but bigger and cooler). When the alligators grew up and moved to a different home we were left with the lovely pond liners that now did not have much of a purpose in our lives.
As time went on these poor little pond liners, feeling useless and lonely, began to sustain injury in their lack of being used. One had a large hole burnt into when a wild fire swept through and took all of our pine trees and half the garden. Another was made into a storage tub I think.. or maybe even borrowed and put to good use on some other farmer's land ( I honestly don't remember what happened to it) But that left us with one good pond liner still sitting innocently in the back yard relaxing by the chicken coop.
Which is where Ken and I found it on that fateful day. It was early June and the sun was gaining power in heating up the earth around us and we were starting to dream futuristically about the coming summer heat waves and our need to keep cool. Upon the finding of the pond liner, Ken and I observed it a little and than decided what we must do with it. We decided we MUST dig a hole in the back yard and put the pond liner into the ground like was its original intention and fill it with lovely water that would be heated in the summer sun and we would have a jacuzzi in our backyard! Well, okay, maybe not a jacuzzi exactly.. but we would have an in-ground pool!!! BRILLIANT!
So with a brief scoping outing of our back yard and the slope and all that stuff..(it was probs still about 10 in the morning on that fateful day) we first got out the lawn mower to contain the grasses and wild plants that were so rudely living where we wanted our pool. In our excitement to start digging we were mowing on the almost fastest setting (riding lawn mower) and maybe accidently mowed down a very large rock, a strange large chunk of metal and a garden hose. We have a push mower now. Any ways! With all that out of the way we returned ourselves to the garage and loaded ourselves with tools needed to perform such a task. With a couple shovels, a pick ax, and a sledge hammer in hand, we ex-marked our spot and began jumping on our shovels and began to dig our pool.
Perhaps if we were thinking we might have thought to ask Dad if we could dig up the back yard and plant a pool in it, or perhaps we would have picked a different location where the sheep hadn't lived for 10 years and trampled the dirt into being like cement, and perhaps we wouldn't have started digging on a hill.... meh.. who thinks before such things anyway? We are act-in-the-moment sort of people.
So anyways, it seemed whenever I jumped on my shovel, I just fell off of it. Ken could at least manage to break at least an inch or 2 into the ground. So that left me standing with the pick ax and encouraging Ken in his efforts. Along our way we uncovered a whole 8ft by 4ft metal fence that had fallen probably when we moved the sheep to the pasture and then had become eaten by the growing grasses that had taken over the spot where we wanted to dig our pool. We found some other treasures too, I think, but the fence was most exciting cuz it was very big and once it was removed we realized the ground actually wasn't as hard as we originally thought.
So, an hour or so later with sweat glistening on our brow, we took a break to drink the koolaide Eva had brought out as sustenance. We were very proud of our work as we stared at a 6ft by 5ft hole that was a proud 4-6 inches deep. After that we decided to take a break from our project and do other things inside the house.
Dad did not seem terribly disappointed by the hole we'd put in the back yard when he returned from work. It's not the first time we've brilliantly decided to dig a gigantic hole in the yard some where.. if I recall correctly, he gazed at our diggings, picked up the shovel we'd managed to break in the process of our diggings, offered a little encouragement by saying that it was a good start and then went to work on his garden.
Well, as often happens when Ken and I take a break from pursuing our dreams, we never went back to work on digging a place for the pool. Which was kind of nice when it rained a good 10 inches a few weeks later.
It was a Sunday afternoon and after I had been out and about doing something or other I went to my room to lay down for a nap. It was not more than 10 or 15 minutes later that I was awaken by a knock on my bedroom door. I opened it and was greeted by 2 very muddy, dirty, slimy looking boys.
Ken has this friend named Nate who is often at our house on Sunday afternoons.. and in the summer a lot more often than that. But anyways.. Ken and Nate.. were standing outside my door absolutely COVERED in mud. Ken was like "Hey Fern!! Come play in the mud with us!" and Nate was like "yeah! It's so much fun"
I was a little groggy at that moment from being awoken from the early stages of a nap and a little bit baffled at how they had snuck past Mom in all their muddiness and had entered the house, gone through the mudroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, the South living room, up the stairs, through the hallway, through Kyle and Kolby's room, and all the way to my room, tracking mud the whole way, and not getting caught or in trouble. Of course my response to such an invitation of playing in the mud was "OK!!! I will be right there!" and then threw a towel at them and told them to clean up their tracks.
When I got myself outside to our happy mud hole, the happy boys were back sitting in it and enjoying it for all it was worth. So it wasn't quite a jacuzzi... but it was relaxing and wonderful all the same.
After I greeted my mud monsters, they greeted back by throwing mud at my face.
And somehow all that lead to me jumping in the mud with them and having a very fantastic time of it.
And then I realized there were worms in the mud and so we biked down to the flooded ditches and went swimming to wash off.
The End.
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