Since cooler weather has arrived in Appalachia-the girls have been enjoying one of their favorite pastimes-gomming in the mud.
All you need is-water, dirt, willing hands, and an imagination. Just look at some of their creations-
a flower mud pate with leaf garnish,
mud salad served with stacked mud balls and a side of mashed mud,
and lastly my personal favorite mud pudding served in a mushroom cap.
Usually when I make pudding I love to lick the bowl. But I think I’ll pass on this one.
Making mud pies and using flora for fake salads was something I enjoyed as a kid. Sometimes the girls will make up a whole meal and ask and The Deer Hunter and me to come as their special guests. They put great effort into the creations just for us to throw them over our shoulders as we pretend to eat them.
Hope you enjoyed the gomming-you can at least be glad it didn’t take place at your house right?
Tipper
Looks like the girls have inherited yours and Granny’s talents of putting together a make do, yummy dish. I was talking on the phone with a cousin yesterday and she laughed when I said that my nephew looked plime blank like my daddy. We spent the rest of the call just remembering some of the words used by our family. Gomm was one of them. I never thought the word was used outside our little eastern Kentucky ‘holler’.
Our Mom used to give us the old window screens to sift the rocks out of the dirt in the backyard. It kept 7 little children occupied so she could get some housework done. We had the best time running our hands through the sifted dirt as it felt like powder then.
Of course we would fill the holes back in, minus the rocks. You had to watch where you walked after that as you didn’t want to fall into one of our “powder” holes. xxoo
Mud is a wonderful thing. Some folks pay high dollar for a Mud Bath, Mud Facial, and various Mud Packs!
Oh how I loved to do this as a child. It has been a very long time but I can see that garden shed my brother and I made into a play house where we cooked many a mud dinner. Thanks Tipper for the lovely memory.
What I love most about this is that your girls are not “little.” A lot of girls their age would not have any interest in such things. I think it’s fabulous. It reminds me a little of my own childhood (though usually I didn’t get THAT dirty). The creativity is priceless.
One time I was making Mud pies with a friend and we were gathering up some loos dirt that we found. Well it was where her brother had just buried a dead rabbit. Yuck!!
My girls would have loved that! I KNOW yours did. 🙂
Hi Tipper! How wonderfully creative your girls are! Love the mud pudding in the mushroom cap! And what better way to maintain their soft skin. They don’t ever need a spa; just come on home! :))
I was over at Twisted Fencepost reading her Halloween story and thought I would go visit some of the contributors to the story, so here I am. I am enjoying my visit to your blog. Mud Gomming – you have brought back some fond memories for me. My sister and I use to go visit and stay at and Aunt and Uncles house when we were young. They had an old black stove in back of their smokehouse and we would spend hours out there making mud pies. I wish I had that old wood burning stove now. Thanks for bring back some great memories for me.
Seriously, that meal looks almost good enough to eat — almost.
Clever mushroom bowl!
This gives ‘making mud pies’ a new meaning. What a wonderfully creative activity for a child, such great memories they’ll have. Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Oh, some of my favorite times as a kid were playing in the mud! You have a wonderful way of stirring up a feeling of nostalgia and forgotten memories.
Playing in the mud was always my favorite.
Oooh, wonderful! Mudpies! This is what childhood fun is all about! I remember having the same kind of fun! (I’m with you, though–I don’t think I’d want to lick that bowl!) 🙂
Your girls are so lucky to know the simples pleasures of life. It’s a shame more people don’t experience that joy!
Osagebluffquilter
That certainly took me back a few years. I spent many summer hours playing with my friends, creating mud pies and other assorted mud ‘dishes’. What fun it was!
That takes me back! We did a lot of the same stuff growing up 🙂
Those girls are back-to-the-land pioneers – some people build houses out of a specific mixture of that stuff! I looked into Cob and Strawbale houses at one point. But I guess more importantly … mud is fun!
Gommy! I haven’t heard that word for awhile. Maw used to always tell me and my brother Jason that we were gommy when we’d come in from playing. When we’d play in the clay mud behind our house, she’d also call us “mud merchants”.
Ahh, fun times!
Matthew
Tipper: Must be a girl thing, your red earth makes this special. I’m with Janet and played with rocks in a stream. Give me the permanence of a rock structure.
delicious does not come to mind but artistic does.
Tipper,
What fun! I remember making mud pies as a child, but never the elaborate creations the girls make. They have great imaginations.
Enjoyed the memories.
Blessings,
Mary
Gomming is a brand-new word to me, one I’m going to try to remember to use! I remember playing in the mud with my little brother, building trenches and roads for his little trucks. Where I grew up we had 4 seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter and Mud..
We have a lot of red clay around here, so it is great for making all kinds of creations. Love the pate!
Is it possible to order one of those pies with a side order of youthful spirit?
Looks like a great day to me!!! They are a lot more creative than I used to be…. Mud pies was the extent of it for me!
Oh yeah! Mud gomming. One of my favorite childhood past times. For awhile there I was right there gomming with them.
Throwing it over your shoulders…that cracked me up!
I love it! My husband is always talking about something being “gommed” up and you are the only other one I’ve heard use that term before. 🙂
I’ve got to tell you that when I saw those mud creations it took me right back to my childhood. But I must confess, I got in big trouble because I put several of my grandma’s setting hen eggs in my mudpie creations and when she found out why they were holding together so well……..boy, ouch….LOL…..Thanks for jogging my memory.
This was my favorite past time as a child…mud pies.
Oh, the memories…
I don’t remember doing that when I was a child, but we used to go in the creek and make dams. We would do 2 or 3 in a row and see if the last one would hold back all the water when we tore down the others. That was fun.
I remember mud pies well. Seems like we had to spend extra time in the tub on those days to get all the dirt that seemed to nestle underneath our findernails. :o)