Mud Madness

After a month of being covered in white, our yard is slowly reappearing. The arctic blast has lifted and we have enjoyed several days of sun and 50-degree temperatures. Today, in addition to being above freezing, it is raining, raining, raining. All of this adds up to one extremely muddy mess. The ground is like a supersaturated sponge, oozing puddles at every step. This mud is even slicker than the snow and ice was! The path to the outhouse is a veritable slip-and-slide. You certainly don't want to wait too long to heed the call of nature because there is no rushing to the bathroom at this point. On the bright side, our world is again replete with liquid water. No more chopping at chunks of ice for the time being.

Lately, Joe has been quite enthusiastic about a concoction known as "Four Thieves Vinegar" that some friends of ours introduced him to. After trying their homemade version a few times, he decided to brew us up a batch. This supposed general purpose health tonic consists of the following ingredients which are mixed together and aged for 6-8 weeks:

-Apple Cider Vinegar
-Horseradish
-Ginger
-Garlic
-Onion
-Jalapeno pepper

I took my first swig of the results today and have decided that if it doesn't kill you, it will definitely kill what ails you. We seem to have discovered today that even a small amount on an empty stomach is not a good idea, so I will let Joe experiment with it and decide the best conditions for it's use. I'm thinking it might be best to reserve it for very dire circumstances, such as an outbreak of dengue fever.