In ski country, when the snow pack melts, they call it mud season. There are parts of the country that could use rain, snow, or the other YUK we have been receiving.
Mornings and evenings require donning the thick ugly pink barn coat, a hat or the coat hood, muck boots (sometimes ice cleats would be nice), either leather or thick fleece gloves depending on what task needs to be done. Boldly opening the door to the garage, gathering feed and water bucket, tentatively opening the door to the outside and assessing my safety on the stoop there. Is it wet, coated with ice, or deep in snow. At this point, I actually prefer the snow, at least I can safely walk in it. Some days when looking out, the grass and trees glisten with tiny icicles hanging from the limbs and fences. Those mornings are treacherous, the stoop and other surfaces, including the grass are like stepping on a kitchen floor where cooking oil was spilled, but for the past week or so, even though surfaces resemble the ice palace in Dr. Zhivago, the surface below is mud, thick, goopy, slimy mud. If one surface doesn’t get you, the other one will.
I keep a good thick layer of hay in the chicken run, which as I have mentioned before, is sloped, highest at the end away from the pop door. After opening, or chipping the ice off the gate to pry it open so I can get to the pop door, the first step is always a challenge. For some reason, the preferred scratching place in the run is right in front of the gate, thus all the hay gets piled deep at the other end in front of the coop. Of course, the rain, freezing rain, snow haven’t helped as they make the hay itself slick once compacted. Every few days, a new layer is put down and every evening when I lock them in for the night, I drag hay back uphill to the gate for my evening and next morning safety.
Each morning for the past couple of weeks have looked like the above pictures. The top one was this morning with freezing rain forecast, but it is pouring down not frozen rain as I write. We are in full blown mud season.
The daylilies have sprouted tender green tips which will get burned by the next onslaught of bitter cold, which is sure to come. The mud will freeze again and thaw again before the grass and trees sprout to drink up the spring showers. After two warm winters, my plans to get more cardboard down in the garden and build up a couple of new beds have been foiled by real winter this year. Maybe it is good that I can’t garden year round, this winter is giving my body the needed rest.
Yesterday, on our Anniversary, we drove into town and got drive thru breakfast, it was too icy on Saturday when we usually do it, so we missed the Farmer’s Market, but so did many of the vendors. We picked up curbside delivery of grocery items and came home, sitting near each other as I spun on my new spindle, a gift from my love, and some on my wheel as one of the fibers I purchased for my blanket, though enough was spun on spindles to fulfill the one block requirement (actually there will be two), I don’t like spinning that particular fiber on spindles, so the remainder of the braid is being done on the wheel.
Late in the day, we picked up the Valentine’s Day special from the local BBQ restaurant and drove down to the river to eat. We arrived to pick up our 5:15 p.m. order at 5:10 and it was already sitting packed on the counter, so it wasn’t hot. Packed in styrofoam clamshell contains, several each, cutting and eating from them was a challenge in the car. We should have brought it home and put it on real plates, rewarming what could be warmed. It was not the fancy anniversary dinner of the past, but it was shared together, watching the river flow by in the drizzly gloom. It was a very uneventful day, but a day spent with each other. Another tick off on the calendar of our lives together and another to look forward to.
