The Three Seasons on the Farm

I've given up on winter, fall, summer, and spring. As far as I'm concerned, there are only three seasons here: frozen bucket season, mud season, and bug season. Mud season comes at least twice a year, making random guest appearances throughout what you thought should have safely been frozen bucket or bug season.

The last couple weeks have been flipping back and forth between mud and frozen bucket season, and I am seriously ready for bug season to hurry up and get here. I'm trying to think of positive aspects of mud season without much success, though I have come up with a few items:

1. The horses love it. Maya thinks splashing around in mud puddles and thoroughly coating herself with a thick layer is just DIVINE. Prento follows suit, and Annie just likes to roll.

2. I get to practice my penguin walk so that I don't slip and fall on my ass walking anywhere on my property. I am now incredible at waddling anywhere and haven't fallen in mud in almost three weeks.

3. Soaking wet ground is easier to dig up than hard, dry, compacted clay. This means I get to dig up the rocks that I keep hitting with my mower during bug season. They're just few inches out of the ground, surely this will be a quick and easy project! Here's the rock; the part not covered in red mud is the only part that I could see when I decided to attempt this. You can see how I tricked myself into a much larger project than I wanted. Willow and Monty for scale:

4. In stark contrast to frozen bucket season, I can actually feel my fingers and face when I go outside. Similarly, I don't feel broiled and swarmed like I do in bug season.

That counts as a positive outlook on mud, right? I won't mention that my entire house is covered in muddy paw and boot prints, no matter how much I try to keep it clean, or that every belonging I own seems to have a light red film on it. Or that I can't ride my horse at home because it's too slippery. Or that it doesn't matter how much I sweep my tack room, it never gets clean. It's fine. I enjoy my mud monsters enjoying themselves. Plus, my arms have never been stronger from having to curry out three full horses worth of mud (almost) every day. Let's be honest, there are some days that I have to just look at the horses and admit that the mud has won this battle.