Mud-wonderful

While every day is the perfect day for playing in the mud, some are more perfect than others. Like International Mud Day, which was yesterday. The kiddos kicked off the celebration by choosing their own appropriate (or not) footwear for a hot, humid summer weekend, then stirred up a brew that alternately turned people into plants and made them happy depending on if they were playing "good guys" or "bad guys". 

Later on they put on their swimsuits and made mud stew, mud cupcakes and a mud pie. The pie and cupcakes were put in the "freezer" in the shade under a large shrub to chill. I had the privilege of taste-testing these, then washing my pans. I am planning a trip to the thrift store for some kitchen equipment that they can keep outside instead of using mine. 

 Then they both got in the mucky, sticky mud by the creek to try to catch tadpoles. Fortunately for the tadpoles they moved quicker than the kids. 

           How did you celebrate?

The time the neighbors realized who was really living next door

Or what the neighbors were likely whispering: More mud and more rocks?

Work on the dry creek bed, which is currently a sloppy, slippery mud slide, great for riding Big Wheels and trikes down, is progressing. We cut up the sod and, instead of filling the local landfill with it, were able to use it to create "banks" along the meanders of the creek bed and fill in low spots around the yard. The creek bed is really, really long. It is going to take a LOT more rocks than we originally anticipated to fill it in. Luckily Waterbug helped us dig two good-sized boulders out of the excavation areas. Two down, a million to go. 

We made good use of the sod cutter that we rented for a 4-hour block by cutting up everything at once. The cutting was the easy part. Pulling up heavy, wet sod wasn't much fun at all, and the many grubs, mealworms, earthworms, red worms, beetles and ants whose roof we tore off were not too pleased either. We removed all the sod from the area behind the house where the new patio will go in, and the 4 tons of pebbles for that project were delivered to my driveway this morning! We also re-vamped the old oft-flooded rectangular garden into a perfectly round rain garden. Now I just need to hope that the seeds didn't wash away before they could take root and sprout. 

Things are busy here, but they are always fun. We always have extra rocks to toss in the creek, mud to splash in, and some sort of mound of something in the driveway to climb lately. And that is what a nature playscape is all about. 

...then we got distracted

It happens to the best of us. The sun rises earlier and stays up later, and so do the kids. It is warm and beautiful. Things happen, stuff comes up, and before you know it you get distracted. We are at a bit of a standstill in our playscaping progress. We decided to re-do the front yard while we were at it, so a couple weeks later we now have a wildflower garden that has doubled in size, and native shrubs replacing the awful old yews and barberries that formed an impenetrable hedge in front of the house. The kids helped, but it wasn't as "fun" as the backyard. 

Don't worry, though, we still made time for the good stuff. We went on hikes, ran through fields, threw rocks in 2 rivers and a couple creeks; 

we dipped buckets in our creek for tadpoles since we have hundreds of them swimming around in there now;

 we watered our garden every day...see? It's actually growing!

And we got MORE rocks! More cobbles that we hand-picked from the dredge pile at the landscape supply yard, and three 2-gallon buckets plus 2 large bags full of pretty gravel that my parents hand-picked from their parking pad. All of those gorgeous rocks will be lining the dry creek bed which we are planning to start on this weekend.

So we kept busy, and we all got plenty of nature playtime and fresh air. But now it's time to get back to work.