By Judi Platt
My feet are sinking quickly into the squishy surface. My hiking boots are not high enough, and my socks are caked with mud. Mud. I leave inch-deep imprints as I tug my feet from Mud’s relentless clutches—each slow, measured step slurping across what could be a Tough Mudder training ground. Mud is an uninvited visitor to our “four-season recreational community,” but like the relative that comes for a weekend and stays a month, it gives us a lot to talk about in an otherwise quiet time.
Summer is delightful in central New Hampshire. Fall is exhilarating. Winter exciting and Spring fickle. Very fickle indeed in the Upper Valley, the land of gravel and undeveloped terrain, where reverence for all things natural reigns. Natives and newcomers alike worship at the shrine of Mother Nature—until she bestows upon us the bonus season that masquerades as an early Spring—a phenomenon unfamiliar to residents like me who have migrated from south of the Mass Pike, where roads and bike trails are paved, neighborhoods carpeted with thick Kentucky blue grass, and most inhabitants’ idea of a good hike is a romp through the local mall.
My first introduction to this seasonal demarcation occurred several years ago when my husband and I, still flatlanders at the time, decided to travel north for an early spring getaway on the other side of the Connecticut River. We were greeted by ubiquitous Closed signs. When the seasonally disaffected innkeeper had taken our reservations, he had failed to mention that Mud wielded its influence and power in the area and was given its own season.
Now, as a resident, I can appreciate the visceral response that this “bonus” season evokes from some who find absolutely nothing amusing about this time of year. The frost heaves on Route 10 have barely sighed their last “good-byes” when mud season slinks into the area. Some years, like 2015 and 2014, it comes and goes in a flash, squeezed into a few weeks between the time we put the skis away in early April and when we uncover the kayaks later that month. Other years, it lingers and teases. And once in a while, like this year, el Niño, the naughty child, or some other climatic interloper, ushers Mud in much too early.
In haste to put another New England winter in the rearview mirror, most of us will have taken snow tires off our vehicles. But, alas! Miles of “quaint” unpaved country roads present challenges anew. We are warned to “stay out of ruts! Drive so that your tires ride the high areas of the road.” As I ride the waves of the back roads, my SUV, with two wheels in the “high areas” and two in the low, I get the cheap thrill of a Tilt-A-Whirl. “Don’t spin your wheels. Don’t rock. Put extra weight in the back of your vehicle or in the trunk.” I hope that my husband hasn’t noticed the few extra pounds I’ve put on during our ski-less winter and ask me to ride in the backseat.
There must be something good about Mud. Kids love to play in it. Pigs wallow in it. “Mudding” brings Louis and Nigel to a truce in the TV drama Suits. My father told me that it soothes bee stings. But the best thing I can think of about it, though, is that Mud, like Spring, is fickle. A few sunny days and it’s “out of here.” And another enticing season follows on its muddy heels.
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