Past articles: It's a Dog's Life
My Name is Mud...Season
This must be the ugliest time of year. Strewn around the yard lie a motley array of items lost over the winter: a child’s glove, a dog leash, a broken sled. Dingy, damp piles of leaves that would not fall unaccompanied and so did not until snow fell now appear, turtle-shell humps of rot matting the grass in random heaps. Bits of unidentifiable detritus strewn by animal, man, or possibly aliens, lie half-buried in the annual quagmire of sodden sod.
Very few things bring out the worst in this part of the world more starkly than the first real grapple of spring against the grip of winter. It’s not a transformation so much as mortal combat, and until May is almost over we’re generally not sure who the winner will be. Nothing here is yet green, nor will it be for weeks to come. The cloak of snow that looked so bright and clean a month ago is withering into ragtag patches of dirty white amid the funereal hues of dingy gray and brown.
Don’t expect the weather to offer any relief. Or steadiness, either: March is a drunkard staggering from one end of the barometer to the other and all along the mercury, too. It will rain, the rain will freeze. It will snow. There will be thunder and torrents and every now and then a glimpse of sun just to taunt and tease. The wind will blow like the deranged whistle of a derailed train. Just about the time you think a storm is over, it is; and something twice as wild is on its heels.
Mud Season is one of the hardest times for travel. Whether you’re in your car, dodging mud slicks or skidding across morning black ice; or a pedestrian reclaiming shoes from a miry pit, dancing a vaudevillian skitter across unseen morning freeze, or circumnavigating a puddle so big the trout are moving in, there’s always an obstacle to overcome, dodge, or outrun.
The traveling won’t stop, though.
Shortly, the North Country will be visited by hikers in T-shirts and sneakers, grumbling and groaning the obstinate presence of ice and snow when but an hour’s drive away tulips are blooming and lawns are green. Innocent fishermen will stand trembling beside our rivers and wonder if casting a line is worth risking icy death in raging runoff. Meanwhile, we’ll still be servicing those last hangers-on of ski season, the downhillers-in-denial. They will be valiantly eking one last run between the rocks and mud as their skis quickly get ripped to ruin.
It will finally pass, this dark and dampened phase in the wash cycle of North Country life. The mud will dry, violets will peek from last year’s leaf mould, green shoots will dash the dark soil along our streams. Birds long absent will return and sing tunes we’d forgotten in the shadow of winter. The sun will shine, the sap will flow, warmth will return to our bones.
And then it’ll be Black Fly Season!