Celebrating Mud

 Guest Post by Julie Hoel, KVR Instructor and Enthusiastic Mud Loving Grandparent

I was just out of college and visiting a friend who had three children. We were chatting when her five-year-old son came bursting in the door full of boyish exuberance and covered with splotches of mud from head to foot. She took one look at him, put on her sternest mom face, whipped out her you’re-in-big-trouble-now voice and said, “JAY MEYER, HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING IN THAT CREEK?” The smile fell from his face, he rolled his big brown eyes upward and said, “No.” The two older sisters and I tried our best contain our laughter as his mom began peeling off the muddy clothes and throwing them directly into the washer. To her credit, she did not shame him for being a muddy mess but continued with her harangue, “You know you’re not supposed to be playing in that creek!” Clearly, her concern was the danger of water play rather than dirty clothes. 

In these parts, we cannot escape the mud of the March thaw and April showers that follow. We can save ourselves irritation and frustration by just embracing and celebrating the wonders of mud. In that spirit, I would like to share my favorite holiday photo of all time. It was refreshingly different from the typical family photo of the kids clean and pressed. These parents were secure enough to celebrate their kids in all their mischievous muddiness in the deep green of a summer day.  When I recently asked their dad if I could share this image, he said, you’re “welcome to use that pic if it’s to promote kids being kids!” He added, “I think based on where we lived our kids naturally got real dirty experiencing being a kid in nature. We had 50 acres and a half mile of river frontage…what a place to be a kid!” He pointed out the nice clean laundry hanging on the line behind them. I also noticed that they are both wearing glasses that somehow remained relatively clear. Definitely experienced mudballs with some self-control!

In these two vignettes, the children sought and located the mud on their own. A quick google search will bring up many benefits of mud play including development of fine and gross motor skills, increasing cognitive skills and enhancing creativity. It also is good for the immune system and decreases stress levels. We would therefore be wise and wonderful caretakers to seek out opportunities for our children’s mud exploration. My favorite resource, Pinterest, has limitless schemes to bring mud play to every location. There are recipes for mud paint, fizzing mud and mud soup. The design suggestions for mud kitchens are endless.

But the fun of mud play is not just for children. Back in ’93, I experienced mud as art with adults during a volunteer week at Dr. Patch Adams’ Gesundheit! Institute in West Virginia. His model of good health includes humor and art as healing. Once a week, volunteers were encouraged to experience community in the mud pit. After the mud bath, there were photo sessions of numerous statuesque poses. It was a truly memorable experience!

So when you encounter the inevitable mud of the season, I encourage you remember your own fondest muddy memory and smile.  And if a mud-covered child comes bursting in your doorway, greet them with that smile and make throwing those dirty clothes into the washer a celebration.

P.S. All the above references to mud exclude flood mud.  That nasty stuff is a nightmare.

For some more muddy inspiration, check out these books and links:

 Mud by Mary Lyn Ray, Illustrated by Lauren Stringer

This beautiful book celebrates the beginning of the mud season in simple text and gorgeous illustrations. 

Mudplay for Kids: Why It's Worth the Mess - Healthline This article provides details about why messy play is so beneficial for children.

Mud, Marvelous Mud - Community Playthings With the benefits clearly outlined, this article provides ideas and considerations for embracing mud play with your child.

A Saunter for the Senses

A guest post by KVR Educator Chuck Hatfield.

It’s 3:30 PM as I stare out the window. The beautiful fairy-land of frost is gone, but the gray hills in the distance are robed in snow—warmed by the afternoon sun. I know these KVR hills.  They are miles away; steep and treacherous—covered in loose, new fallen snow and layers of slippery oak leaves. I used to be a hiker…no, John Muir disliked that word…I was instead a saunterer, one who “goes here and there” like a pilgrim in the “holy land.”  Then I had hip surgery, and my world got smaller. 

Recently I reread an article written 88 years ago this month by Helen Keller, a remarkable woman who was both blind and deaf. She wrote:

I asked a friend who had returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied.  How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note?

Healing, especially at my age, is frustratingly slow—bone and tissue first, with muscle and conditioning lagging, requiring a commitment to action. Snow shoveling was my commitment for the day. But I stare at a small notch of dark hemlocks, low on the hillside far away. I know that place! Its mysterious beauty, its haunting history, never fails to connect my soul to this amazing land. I am called...

In minutes I am following a wide, snowy trail, already packed by hundreds of boots. I turn off the main trail, finding my own path through the brush, now marked only by deer tracks.  It leads down into the steep valley where the ice-skirted Kickapoo River flows. As I cross the first small tributary, I stop to listen. The woods seem empty and I am expecting silence.  Not so. The wild cry of a pileated woodpecker echoes among the bluffs. A crow calls.  The river gurgles a response. Falling frost needles whisper past my ears.

I am now in a unique world where time has stood still—holding within it the spirit of the ice ages. When the last glacial ice sheet that surrounded the Driftless Area melted its way north, the sunny hillsides and ridges began a long transition to oak savanna prairies, mixed hardwood and pine forests.  But the steeply cut, moist, sandstone ravines—with cool, northern or eastern exposure—allowed a very special community of plants adapted to life on the edge of a frozen world to persist. 

Yellow Birch Bark

Blue Bead Lily

Partridge Berry

 These microclimates contain the dark forests of hemlocks, interspersed with yellow birch, Canada yew, and eastern white pine, along with wintergreen, partridge berry, blue-bead lily, northern monkshood, and many other species that would normally be found hundreds of miles further north. 

In front of me a rocky, lichen-encrusted cliff thrusts itself into the river, seeming to block my passage beyond.  But I see that the deer tracks continue, and I know their secret.  A nearly invisible ledge of rock skirts the base of the bluff, providing a safe path to a wild and beautiful river woodland. Protected from human traffic by the river to the east and a wall of rock on the other, the snow is a newspaper of tracks and trails. All manner of animals, small and large, roam this marshy woods.  I stand for a while, absorbing the stories around me.  But, today I have a goal: the ice cave.

I reach a small valley that opens through the nearly continuous wall of rock. Only a careful gaze can see the bit of ice visible in a dark shadow above, not worth the effort to climb. Still, I hobble my way up to the shadow and find that the valley abruptly ends in a shallow half-circle cave. It is 5 to 20 feet in height  and 10 to 15 in depth, the whole cave being over 100 feet wide. 

Short but beautiful ice formations flank the sides, with several tall, magnificent ice columns gracing the center. It has the unsettling feeling of sacred space. I sit, my heart slows, and my senses reach out to explore…

Weeping sandstone, dripping in frozen lacework on the back wall…

The steady patter of falling water, a melody echoing from a hidden chamber within the column…

Pale blue-green light filtered through the icy veil…

The rattle of a small rock falling from the ceiling, the cluttered floor a witness to a process ongoing for thousands of years…

A feeling of safety and protection—a sense of history, of quiet ghosts of those who may have occupied this snug haven ages ago…

The heady smells of damp rocks, decaying leaves, of muddy soils…

Tracks of a small animal, barely visible in the twilight, leading to a dark hole in the far corner…

The ceiling, covered by the holes and impressions of 100s of fossilized Paleozoic worms…

The quiet, musical “clink” as I break off a tiny icicle, its melting coldness caressing my tongue….

I am enchanted by these lovely revelations and I admit that I seldom give my senses such full access to my conscious brain. Perhaps I have more worthy things to think about?  I continue to recall the words of Helen Keller: 

I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch, feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter’s sleep. […and, even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away].

Perhaps John Muir’s origin or definition of a saunterer was not accurate. Regardless, today I sauntered to this sacred place, bringing with me my greatest gifts—my senses.  And, it is awareness of these sensual moments that calls me to explore the world around me more fully, more intimately.  It is not just my healing leg that requires exercise!

Need a little food for your senses and rest from your emotions? Saunter along the river through the beautiful Kickapoo Valley Reserve and its sacred places; any day, any season, just do it!!

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A note to our visitors...

We encourage everyone who hikes to the ice formations at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve this winter to be mindful of the fragility of the ice in a season that could see more traffic than usual as folks seek opportunities to get outside. Please remember that the Reserve's intent is to conserve, restore, and maintain the ecology and biodiversity of the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, while balancing access and recreation for visitors. Winter features like the ice formations are a part of this. Please avoid handling the ice and consider taking photos. We love to see photos shared on our social media pages. Thank you for being a part of the community that cares about the Kickapoo Valley Reserve and its many gifts. For more information, visit the Kickapoo Valley Reserve website and consult the Winter Trails Map.