Muddy driveway in the spring.

Having a young child at home makes a person think back to their childhood and think about what they want to teach their kid (or what stories to tell).

All this talk about spring got me wondering. Does anyone have a dirt driveway built out of poor enough materials that the need to block it off and walk from the road anymore? I remember that was a huge part of my childhood in the spring. Making “drainage ditches” in the driveway to remove the excess moisture from the driveway, carrying groceries all 200 yards from the road to the house, etc.

Boy that brings back memories. We lived at the end of a long dirt road that would wash out every spring. Lots of long walks before the county would get the Graders in there and level it back out. One year we ran low on fuel oil and the truck couldn’t get to us. Dad and I managed to plug the holes and shore up the low spots enough to get the truck through.

Rootski

Draining water was a favorite pastime growing up. And he77, still is today.

Please teach the kid that after making mud pies and getting full of mud that they should always bring a specially made mud pie in the house for their mother.

I saw something yesterday the really rings in along this line….

I came out of a store and was walking across the lot to the car when I saw a woman and her two kids get out of a car. The lot had some 12″-14″ snow ridges between vehicles that extended out to almost where the traffic knocked them down. Right behind her car was a puddle. Her little girl, maybe three years old, went right to the puddle and was testing the splash factor when her mother told her to come along. The girl had to make one last stomp in the water but slipped on the snow ridge and landed flat on her face in the puddle. Pink coat, pink doggie snow cap complete with long droopy ears and pink snow pants now had a mud line across most of her from. That water had to be some kind of cold. Man, when reality hit home you should have heard the wail.

This post brings back a ton of memories.

I have a gravel/dirt driveway that still requires ditching/drainage in the spring. A task I cherish. It harkens me back to my youth. About 6 or 7 years ago, when my boys (aka: “The Men”) were roughly ages 3 & 6 I was putzing around in the garage on a warm April afternoon. The driveway was a muddy mess. I noticed The Men situated in the midst of a particularly deep mud puddle. The youngest had his bike intentionally stuck in the slop – the training wheels holding it stationary as he peddled for all his might. Directly behind him – standing in the spray of the rooster tail – was my oldest boy. His arms were joyously outstretched as though he were being baptisted in Holy Water.

I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Men! What on earth are you doing?”

“Oh, no, Dad,” my eldest replied, “we’re playing Dirty Jobs.”

“Carry on,” was my response.

My best memories are when the Minnesota River south of Fairfax took over our home and we had to live with Grandma for a couple of weeks the as water receeded we would walk across my dads footbridge and up over the granite rock formation to the house. Then the fun began fishing of the front porch and following the water as it went down fishing, ducks and mud everywhere awesome childhood and the wife wonders why I am redneck and proud of it.!!!!Chippman

What a timely post. I was just outside with the girls cleaning the ice out of the end of my driveway. Each spring I have to get it draining.

And I remember having to walk through the snow storm to get to school 3 feet of snow, (of course it was uphill for 5 miles both ways)