A very muddy walk

Today we woke up to four inches of white, fluffy snow. I decided to take the dogs for a walk this morning which was a good thing, because by noon the snow had all melted except in shady places under the trees.
Auguste loved the snow--it was his first 'big' snowfall. He liked to eat it, and would take big snapping mouthfuls of it and gulp it down.
This afternoon it was very sunny, so my son and I took the dogs out again and took a longer walk to the fields behind the village. It was very, very muddy.

We saw a hare. It bounded right out of the bushes in front of me and the dogs took a few steps after it but when we called them back they stopped. Even the dogs could see the futility of chasing after that hare. Besides, we were ankle deep in mud at that point. It stuck to our boots and weighed us down, but the sun was shining and there was no breeze, for once, up on the crest of the hill, so it was almost warm out. We had a nice view of the village. Then we went back down into the hollow and washed our boots off in the washing shed. The water was freezing but the dogs didn't mind, and even Auguste was soon splashing around in it. (Which was a good thing - he was covered in mud)

There are washing sheds like this in almost all the villages. Not so very long ago, the washing was done sitting at the edge of the pool, rubbing the cloth on the smooth stone with a bar of laundry soap. They still sell the bars of soap here - huge white bars of fragrant soap(that don't float, lol.)
I can only imagine how heavy the wet laundry was and how awful it must have been pushing it in a wheelbarrow back up the hill. In our back yard there is a shed with a hay rack. Maybe there was a donkey once there, and they used the donkey to carry the laundry?
I think I'd love a time-machine.