Saturday, March 12, 2011

“Mud Season”

"Mud Season"
Copyright March 12, 2011 by Lori-Ann Willey



All the rain we’ve had in the past few days has spawned lots of talk about spring.  I’m not only hearing things like, “Oh, so much snow has melted”, but also things like, “Ugh!  Mud Season!”  Then, there is always that one person who says things like, “I just saw my first mosquito!”   With all Maine’s “Seasons”, this blog is more focused on the dreaded mud seasons I experienced as a child.
Back when I was between the ages of nine and twelve, we lived on an old discontinued dirt road in Palmyra.   There were only three houses on the road and with ours being at the end of the “drivable” part and furthest from the rest, so we had further to travel than the others did.  As a kid, it was part of our job to help maintain the road because the town deemed it not their job because it was considered discontinued despite the three homes that resided on it.  This meant that our road essentially became a very long driveway, and needless to say that despite having a four wheel drive truck, the road was impassible a few months of the year.  In addition, it didn’t matter how many times my parents went to the town for help with the road; they were simply ignored, so it became our job to help keep the road usable …or as usable as we could make it.
In the wintertime, we three girls had to walk in the deep snow to catch the bus at the other end of the road.  However, we were tough and in good shape, it was by far way too cold to make that trek during some of those wintry days, but we managed.  The bus driver was wonderful.  Knowing how far it was for us to walk, if she saw us in the distance, she always waited for us, where as other bus drivers would probably keep on a truckin’ on past.  If we saw Arlene waiting, we always ran as fast as we could, but each time she told us that if she saw us, she’d wait for us as long as she needed to.  Even as kids, I always appreciated that.
As the snows melted and the ice from the small pond in the low area melted, the small culvert would often clog of natural debris.  I remember reaching over with sticks to clear it on my way to and from school each day.  It was something I had seen my father do on many occasions, so if something was clogging it, one of us girls would simply unclog it.  Of course, this gave us an excuse to get wet and play around a bit, too.  More times than not, water poured over the top of the road and there was no way to walk around it though we tried a few times and failed miserably.
I remember once that I took a stick and dragged it across the road to help the water flow more free like.  Well, you can imagine what THAT did!  Yes, you guessed it; I helped the culvert wash out a bit more than it would have otherwise.  That was a lesson well learned!  I don’t think I ever told my parents that I was a contributor of that one wash out in particular.
With the darkness of the dirt came more melting which turned into more mud that got deeper and deeper each day.  Usually, most mornings the mudded ruts would be frozen so we could walk along the top of them and remain clean and dry, but on the way home was a totally different story.  At times there would be water running down the road in the muddy ruts causing more havoc as more melting happened.  It is on those warmer days that walking in the road or even on the edges of it in many areas was impossible unless we literally wanted to wade in the mud.  In addition, do you know how many times my boots and pants got sucked off my body?  Too many to count!  That’s how deep the mud was at times.
During mud season, we’d simply walk in the ditch along the road trudging through water pouring over our sneakers and sometimes up to our knees though we tried to stay on top of the rocks, sometimes it just didn’t happen that way.  The woods were thick on the edges, and encased in deep snow, so in most areas it was simply easier and less spooky to stay out where it was less cumbersome.  Walking in the ditches was how I once found a really huge rock filled with seashells.  It was a beautiful example of fossils and I made sure that I went to look at it each afternoon.  At one point my sisters and I tried to dig it out of the dirt and water, but it was useless; it was beautifully pitted and I sooo wanted to take it home with me.
With the help of our friends and family, we would fill the truck bed full of rocks from the fields and rock walls around the area as we tried to somewhat build up the base of the road.  It all seemed useless because it didn’t matter how many truckloads of rocks or how huge some of those rocks were, they’d simply disappear from site and sometimes even unreachable by stick pokes!  It was a big joke in the family about our family friend, Steve who was a large, very rugged man.  He picked up a rock once that my father swore weighed 300 pounds just to watch it sink out of sight never to be seen again.  I clearly remember my father and Cousin Rodney laughing about it as they shook their heads in disbelief. That’s how deep the mud was and that’s how rugged Steve was!  Each year we were there, we would dump truck load after truckload of rocks into the road...none would ever be seen again.
More times than not, our vehicle had to be left quite a ways from the house and in the middle of the road.  It was no biggie because we were the only house beyond the mud spots, but it became quite a hassle to bring in groceries and getting to and from the bus stop each day.  We were often mud from head to toe.  If we weren’t muddy from walking or falling into the stuff, we were muddy from trying to retrieve our boots or sneakers from the deep mud.  With each tug came a loud, squeaky suction noise that often let know we were winning the tug-of-war challenge set before us.  At times, we had to pull so hard that once the mud released our footwear, we were sent backwards into the mud behind us.  It was a bitter win for sure. 
So, there you have it, an example of Maine’s Mud Season.