What mud can become!

You might be wondering what is so cool about mud. Well, if you simply are not fascinated by the mere intoxication from squishing it inbetween your toes (though I can hardly understand why you wouldn't) I do wish to share some other wonderful facts about mud; or rather, water, dirt, and what they can become!

You already know that water+soil=mud, but what you may not know is that different types of soil make different kinds of mud!

For example, a sand castle is a magical creation in where water and sand are used to construct an object of the imagination! Be it a castle, or a densive wall in wich you intend to hurt sloppy sand balls at your opponent, muddy sand can be quite fun! However, muddy sand does not hold water easily. Sand is made of small tiny rocks, but most soil is actually made of much smaller particles (pieces) of rocks. You may not think of a rock as small, maybe something the size of your hand, but dirt, soil, they are rocks, just in a smaller size!

Other kinds of soil would be the kind you would put your plants in. Now, This kind is very useful for growing things. It typically has a large ammount of decaying matter. Now, that might seem gross, but because of that decaying matter, plants are able to extract live nutrients from the soil and grow stronger, into a flower, grass, a pumpkin, or even a tree! This kind of soil holds water much better.

And the final type of soil in which i will be talking about is Clayey (also known as clay). Clayey, is a fascinating mixture of soil and water. Its so fine (small) that it can be used in many different useful forms. Hundreds even thousands of years ago, people used Clayey and water to make homes, or even dishes to eat out of! Now, we have refined this process and impoved it to make bricks. We also use it still for pottery (a fancy word for dishes or vases). Pottery is a very rewarding art form. With water, and the right kind of Clayey, you can mold a block of it into a piece of art with just your bare hands. Well, maybe not just your bare hands, you do need to dry the clayey our to make it hard of course! You let the pottery sit for a few days, and then you put glaze over it. (Glaze is a special kind of paints that doesn't look like its real color) To do that, you need a furnace ( or an oven) that can bake something at really high tempatures. You can't use your oven at home, those typically only go to 500 degree's, to make pottery, you need something that can go to a much hotter tempature, this hardens the Clayey artwork.

So as you can see, there are many amazing things about mud! It has so many forms and its been a proven method of development! I hope the next time you see a puddle of mud, you will think twice about just stepping over it, but instead study it and remember; there is more to that mud than might meet the eye!