Rural Routes, Blog Version

It’s raining, it’s pouring
The old man is snoring.
Fell out of bed,
Bumped his head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning.

I read recently that this nursery rhyme is really the story of a drunk old man whose inebriation was the cause of both the snoring and the fall.
You cannot believe everything you read, unfortunately, so I cannot say whether or not this is really where the rhyme started.
But I was reminded of the rhyme after a real-life experience of my own.
I had a dream – a nightmare, really, although I can remember very little of it now. I do know that I was fighting someone or something and I am told that I was thrashing around quite violently.
I remember pushing against my assailant and that is when I found myself on the floor, holding my head where I had hit it on the corner of the night stand.
I did get up in the morning, but the headache lasted throughout the day.
THE PART WHERE I TALK ABOUT URINE
I recently read the book “The Little Book of the Icelanders in the Old Days” by Alda Sigmundsdottir, a collection of fifty short essays. One of the things I learned – and I learned many – is that centuries ago Icelanders washed their clothes and their bodies in urine, believing that the ammonia in urine made it a good cleanser.
The writer noted that clothing washed in urine does not come out with that fresh smell we associate with anything newly-laundered nowadays. Which perhaps is why, she says, the Icelanders did not launder things often. Or bathe.
I did some research and discovered that Icelanders were not alone in this practice. The Romans did it, too. In fact, the Romans used urine as a mouthwash to whiten their teeth, or so I read.
In northeast England, homemakers soaked badly-stained items in the contents of the chamber pot, before washing them with soap and water.
One of urine’s ingredients was also used in the making of gunpowder.
It’s a case perhaps of making do with what you’ve got. Or ‘knowing what we know when we know it’.
I think we should probably be glad that we now know other ways of removing stains and getting our teeth whiter.
SPRING IS COMING, ISN’T IT?
We’re getting closer and closer to spring’s official arrival and lately temperatures have been hovering at or above freezing level.
But then along comes a Colorado low and all our plans go out the window. March is like that.
I am old enough to know that heavy snow can fall  almost every month of the year in this part of the world. I remember once being storm stayed in Winnipeg for two days in mid-May.
But by March, we really WANT spring and every postponement is a disappointment.

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