According to the Weather Bug's 10-day forecast, we're looking at highs in the upper 40s and even mid-50s this week. Lovely. The Mud Season has arrived, that lovely time of year when the driveway is super sloppy but the snowbanks are still too high on either side to allow me to avoid the puddles and muck when I stroll from the house up to the Woman Cave and back again. Time to dig out the rubber boots and hope I manage to avoid the worst of the sink holes. There's nothing quite like stepping on what looks like reasonably solid ground and feeling your foot sinking into knee-deep mud.
If the Weather Bug's forecast wasn't enough to let me know Spring Break-Up is here, the County Road Commission's sign down by the highway is. Seasonal load limits are now in effect: there will be no logging trucks on the Herman Road for a few weeks.
I don't think this will be a particularly sloppy Mud Season compared to some. I don't anticipate things getting so nasty we end up parking out on the county road to avoid getting stuck in our own driveway. Then again, you never know. There are a couple spots that can be deceiving. There's a little knoll between the house and the gate that has been known to eat cars. It's the last spot to thaw out because it's on the north side of a hill. The rest of the driveway will be back to looking totally normal, not even damp spots showing anymore, and that knoll will finally wake up and decide to snare a vehicle or two. It'll look perfectly solid and then the bottom drops out and whatever you're driving is sitting there with mud seeping up over the axles. That hasn't happened in a few years -- the S.O. spent a fair amount of time and money building that section of the driveway up -- but I always get the feeling that knoll is just biding its time.
The only difference between your "Mud Season" and ours out here in Maine is we simply call it "Mud Season" and claim rights to having 4 seasons, not just three.
ReplyDeleteI think the road limit signs around here will start appearing next week because like you folks, we are looking at 50' or so this next week.
I will say that this year the frost heaves are not as bad as they are usually. I don't feel like I am on a boat out in 20 foot waves. Black flies are hopefully just around the corner. And then those damn mosquitoes.
We Yoopers claim there are only two seasons here: winter and 3 months of rough snowmobiling. This year the rough snowmobiling is starting earlier than usual.
ReplyDeleteTexas..we go from drought to mud to freezing to 102..all in one week...it's been in high 70's for weeks and now we're getting some much needed rain..or at least we'er supposed to.
ReplyDeleteWhat Macrum said. Mud season is a fact of life here like it is where you live. But, because of he mild winter we have had I expect bug season to be particularly vicious.
ReplyDeletethe Ol'Buzzard