Making Mud Pies by Connie Suthers Patridge

"Making Mud Pies" By Connie Suthers Patridge

Once I made mud pies, only once.  With Mom away at summer school classes and with Dad at home but in the fields, I was pretty much on my own around the house most summer days.  One sunny day I decided to make mud pies.  I rounded up my play dishes, got all the ingredients together and went to work.  There is a knack to perfecting mud pies.  Too much water and the pies were too thin to set up.  They would take days to bake. Not enough water and they couldn’t be stirred together.  Finding rocks for fruit pieces was easy as the driveway was graveled.  A few pieces of grass to hold the meat of the pie together and for the finishing touches on my tasty creations, flower blossoms from the abundant weeds nearby.   The pies needed sunshine to bake, so I put them out along the driveway a few feet away from the shady back porch and went on my busy way with other ways to entertain myself.  Alas, I didn’t take check to see if the pies were done.  No one else knew they were baking.  Mom came home.  Drove up to the house.  End of pies.  End of my play dishes.  Driving over mud pies does nothing for their quality.  End of baking projects.  Maybe that was a harbinger for future pie baking?