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Posted by: Kim_Hamilton on 07/28/2009 11:18 PM Updated by: thepinetree on 07/29/2009 10:00 AM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM
:



Welcome to the Country....So you’ve decided to move to the country where kids find they need to be creative to find entertainment" ~by Charity Maness


by Columnist, Charity Maness

So you’ve decided to move to the country where kids find they need to be creative to find entertainment. The following is an excerpt from my book, “From Positive Test to Empty Nest.” One day after a horrible wind storm I went outside to see that our canvas gazebo had been destroyed. The canvas had been torn from the frame and ultimately the frame had broken. It seemed reasonable to me that a broken gazebo should be dismantled and put in our dumpster. I said this solution seemed reasonable to me, but a solution like that does not even exist in the minds of prepubescent boys and inquisitive teens......


About an hour after asking for the gazebo to be dismantled I hear laughing and joyful screaming coming from the back field. Not worried at all, I look out the window and see that the kids had concocted a makeshift land parachute from the canvas of the gazebo. Brilliant! They would sit on a snow toboggan, hold the four corners of the canvas tied with rope while the other kids would lift the front of the billowing canvas to catch the wind. When the wind would fill the canvas sail they would be carried across the field sliding with great speed on their snow toboggan. The wind would literally carry them for at least an acre. It was incredible.

Would you like to know what happens when a golf cart was introduced to the mix? First a little detail, it was the middle of a Copperopolis winter therefore mud was king. My ever resourceful boys decided to tie a small round snow disc to the back of the golf cart with a horse lunge rope. I did tell you they were resourceful. This put the snow disc at about fifteen feet behind the golf cart. You’ll see that this was a strategic length. One boy would get on the snow disc while the other drove like the wind through every mud puddle on the property and some on the neighbors! You ask what was strategic about the fifteen foot rope? I’ll tell you. Not only was the passenger on the snow disc getting swamped with mud and cold water from every possible mud puddle, that same passenger was also getting the rooster tail of flying mud from the back tires of the speeding golf cart. Whoopee, mud from all sides.

As if there was not enough naturally produced mud on our property our boys with help from the extended clan came up with a brilliant plan to create more. Yes, more mud. So taking all the garden hoses we owned from all around the property they created bigger, better mud puddles. What fun! It was hard to tell the kids apart at the end of that day. The whites of their eyes and the big white toothed smiles were the only visible signs that these mud creatures were actually humans and not aliens of some form. It was then that I did my mommy head count of the mud aliens. There were eight. Hmm, at last count I only had seven. I guess I had some explaining to do to the next door neighbor kid’s mother.

Until next time…welcome to the country.

www.charitymaness.com

Charity’s books are available at the Union Mine Country Store, Books and More, and Amazon.com.


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