Before or coinciding with spring this year in New England comes Mud Season. All that snow has to go somewhere when it melts. It melts into lovely rivers of water. Water that turns dirt roads like mine into mud pits. I live as Jeff Foxworthy would say, “if your directions say, turn off the paved road…you might be a redneck.”  My normally calm dirt road is full of huge ruts this year, ruts that you have to navigate carefully, bumping and holding onto the steering wheel with all of your might, as the car bucks and hops like some sort of deranged bronco.

     Never mind the visual after effect left on my car. My poor Honda Pilot looks like it has been “Mudding”, there are splotches of mud all over the side of my car and streaks of it on the mirrors. All this from just navigating my road.
     I know what most of you will say, “you chose to live there, that is what you get,”  and yes you would be right. It is what I get, I also get temperatures that are at least 10 degrees cooler in the summer, and less humid than in the flatlands. A peace and quiet that can’t be achieved in the city or even the suburbs. The kind of bucolic peacefulness that it hard to come by.
     I also get the constant trail of mud from dogs that don’t know how to wipe their feet when they come in the house, as well as mud left my kids and a husband that know how to, they just don’t. Sand and dirt on and in the bed, from the same dog that believes that once the bed is made, it is her job and right to unmake it and crawl under the covers. Muddy feet and all.
     This time of year no matter how many times I sweep or mop, the mud is just there. Caking everything, like sticky cake batter, that doesn’t taste near as good. But it means that my family is enjoying the outdoors. All of them, kids, hubby and pets alike. Someday there will be no muddy footprints, and I will miss them.