Chipps Family Swimming Hole

        I wasn't there but I heard all about it. Even though they vowed to help me after the tone of my voice reached mid hysterics- I still cleaned up the mud and washed all the clothes.
                   My children go swimming in March.
      

      There are a few insignificant reasons why this had to happen.
      It started early last spring after the snow melt. Mosquito Creek floods and backs up a tile that drains a large ravine in our woods. A few times it has frozen over and made for some fine skating. But if it fills up the depth of it is over 6ft. deep. Once the creek goes down so does our swimmin' hole. That means there isn't much time to get wet.
      Any boy staring out the window instead of his books is going to daydream about that hole of water down there. Last spring Nathanial did an awful lot of just that. He asked, begged and pleaded. His persistence galled me, I couldn't believe he thought I would even think about  (note: I didn't have brothers) letting him "go swimming". Fine, then, go find out for your self how cold it is! and hurried him out the door.
      He got dressed fairly warm to do this. After a very short dunk Nathanial came back inside chattering. The next thing I know Abigail is gone. The rest of us stood out on the deck to witness dive after dive, Nathanial taking back up the challenge with his sister and Jeremiah soon followed.
      I suppose that makes it OK.and acceptable in our society to swim just after the snow melts. Plenty of cultures enjoy this activity. Who said it would hurt any one? A healthy child would only be blessed by such a plunge. The only thing that did happen was Nathanial broke out in a mild case of poison ivy all over his body.
      This year they prepared. They lashed down a pallet onto a couple of logs and waited for the water to rise. And it did. Sure enough swimming time came again.

     I hope that when the are older that they don't remember my lack of enthusiasm for all their springtime mess. I just don't understand why they thought they needed to dress up warmly, complete with gloves, for goodness sakes.