March Mud-ness

Right up there with the disaster in Japan, college basketball's March Madness dominates news headlines and air time.

But here in our world, March isn't about basketball madness — it's about mud madness. My birthday falls in mid-March; and, for as long as I can remember, my birthday has always been muddy.

A couple weeks ago, I thought maybe I was going to have a white birthday since there was so much snow cover left. I'll take tromping through snow over trudging through mud any day.

But Mother Nature does not disappoint. The warm winds blew, sunshine prevailed, the snow melted, it rained — and, voilà — mud!

And the mud is everywhere. The cow yard, the heifer lot, our entryway floor, inside Dan's rubber boots (how do kids manage to get mud inside their mud boots, anyway?). His snowpants are twice as bad.

With the mud comes mud puddles. I'll never fully understand the magnetism between children and mud puddles, but that attraction pulls Monika into them without fail.

There's hope, though. The one good thing about having a yard with as much slope as we have is that it tends to drain and dry quickly. The slush/snow that's falling this morning won't help, but I'm inclined to believe that this has to be winter's last dance.

And in a few short weeks, this mud-ness will be but a memory as we bask in the sunshine of spring.