Easter Sunday: Playing in the “Compost”

After dinner on Easter Sunday, my sister-in-law Jennifer took the kidlets outside to have an egg hunt, which was fun in every way that egg hunts can be fun.  There was great scrambling to find eggs, much running and dashing about my mother’s yard, followed by careful lining up of all the plastic eggs, and a jelly bean fiesta.  While all the merriment was taking place, my nephew Jack had gone down for a nap, so when the jelly beans had been consumed, I told the kidlets that they could choose to either go inside and have a quiet rest, or stay outside and play.  Of course, they chose to stay outside to play.  So,  Auntie Jennifer took them exploring on the farm, and I (thankfully) went inside and changed out of my church clothes.  Seeing that my BROTHER and FATHER were doing the dishes, I zipped right on out of the house with the intent of following them around with my camera.

I met up with them near the silage pile.  I was ashamed to realize that my children didn’t know what silage was before this trip.  However, we had several opportunities to get up close and personal with the smelly stuff (it smells so good in the fall, and so bad in the spring).  At the base of the silage pile, where the tractor drives to scoop up the silage to deliver to the cattle, there are several enormous mud puddles that consist of manure and fermented silage.  In other words, the puddles are very stinky.  Ya Ya loves puddles, all the kidlets were wearing galoshes, and we were on the farm, for crying out loud, so I said it would be fine to play in the puddles.  I wouldn’t have wanted to pass up the opportunity if I were their age.

Ya Ya and Mr. Sneaky Pants waded into the murky water, and it took less than one minute for Mr. SP to fall over backwards into the mud.

Auntie Jennifer and I extracted his orange church shirt, and since he wasn’t distressed, we sent him back down the hill to the puddle.

Ya Ya was leaping like a gazelle through the muck, having a glorious time, and in a matter of minutes, lost her balance and fell backwards.

Ya Ya decided this was pretty much the most fun she’d ever had in her life, and went running up the hill to the house to tell Grandma Robbie to come and watch.  Right as she crested the top of the hill, Mr. Sneaky Pants got stuck in the muck.  Seriously stuck.  Auntie Jennifer and I were watching and laughing (when Auntie Jennifer gets the giggles everyone around her gets the giggles, and quite frankly, I was laughing so hard I thought I might have the baby right there in the silage pile) and we could visually SEE his galoshes sinking and the muddy water nearing the tops of the boots.

Ya Ya, with her galoshes, was out of hearing range.  Auntie Jennifer and I did not have galoshes, and here was Mr. SP in the middle of the puddle, majorly stuck and getting quite a bit distressed.

We shouted in vain for Ya Ya.  We tried to instruct Mr. SP verbally about how he might try using his arms to try to pull up on his boots, but it only made him sink farther down, and of course he lost his balance and fell face first into the puddle.  And I’m ashamed to say, Auntie Jennifer and I got the giggles even more despite the fact that he was very distressed at that point.  In fact, I was laughing so hard and so much I couldn’t even manage to take a picture.  After I calmed down a bit, I managed to tiptoe to the edge of the puddle and grasp his hand, but because my belly is big, I don’t have that good of balance myself, and I was precariously close to tumbling over into the mud myself, camera and all.  Auntie Jennifer grabbed my other arm and pulled me and I pulled Mr. SP and he came flying out of his boots, which were still stuck in the mud.

Sock footed, Mr. SP was not a happy guy.  But thankfully, Grandma Robbie and Ya Ya came back down the hill and Ya Ya retrieved the boot.  Mr. SP poured the black water, manure and silage out of his boot, and after a bit of reassurance from Grandma, both of them went tromping back in the mud until they were too cold and soaked to the bone to stand it any more

When they were all done, Auntie Jennifer and I giggled ourselves back up to the house, where we helped Grandma strip them down on the back deck.  While we were getting them out of their muddy clothes, The Banana, who had remained on the sidelines with big eyes during the whole episode, shouted out, “But what about Ya Ya’s FINGERNAIL POLISH!”  Grandma had just done up the girls’ nails the night before in fancy fingernail polish, and The Banana was horrified to think that the fingernail polish might be damaged.

Oh heavens.

I had the honor of giving Mr. Sneaky Pants a bath to wash out the muck, and let me tell you, the bathroom smelled so ripe that it would have made most people throw up.  When my dad, who is in the middle of muck all day on the farm, heard about the puddles they chose, he was horrified and said it was the worst muck on the farm.