A little bit of mud

This was too good to pass up. Especially in the City of Expansion, where houses are still going up, even with the slump in the market, and people are still moving here in droves.

Of course, mud has been used in construction for thousands of years in many different cultures. Many sites about mud homes are listed when you search the internet. And many creatures, like worms, frogs, crayfish, clams, snails, make their home in mud. In other uses, you can take a mud bath in a spa to look "ten years younger". Folk medicine practitioners used mud poultices to "draw out the poison" from a sting, bite, or infection.

Then there’s the "dirty" side: "slinging mud" during a political campaign, "your name is mud," the negative connotation of "taking a mud bath," and being served "a cup of mud" at a greasy-spoon diner.

But overall, it seems that mud is part of our origin, after all, doesn’t the "good book" say that God fashioned humankind out of "a little bit of mud?"

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.

--John LeCarre

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.
--e e cummings